Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: The nutty peanut butter coupled + the semi-sweet chocolate chunks = just the perfect flavor combination!
Texture: The bars are perfectly thick and chewy with a generous amount of gooey chocolate chunks studded throughout.
Ease: Super easy!
Pros: Simple recipe to satisfy any PB & choc craving.
Cons: None!
Would I make this again? I make these bars ALL the time.
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Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars are the perfect quick and easy bake for any PB and chocolate lovers out there.
I could go on and on about how much I adore chocolate + peanut butter. But hopefully, if you’re reading this post, you’re already sold on the combination!
I have a feeling these Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars will become a staple part of your baking repertoire.
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They’re super quick and simple to throw together, and you likely already have most of the ingredients on hand. I love that they’re thicker than a cookie, and they’re absolutely amazing with a scoop of ice cream on top.
Most of the time when I’m craving something sweet, I want something with a substantial texture. Whether that’s thick, fudgy, rich, dense, chewy, gooey, or crunchy, I’m all about the texture.
That’s probably why I’d take a cookie, bar, or brownie over a slice of cake almost any day. I might be the only one who feels this way, so if you agree please let me know in the comments below!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars
What Type of Peanut Butter for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars?
I used Skippy peanut butter when creating these Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars. If you wish to use natural peanut butter, be sure it’s extremely well stirred and cohesive, with no oily pockets or dry bits, before using. I’ve found in other recipes (like my Classic Peanut Butter Cookies, and my Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies) that natural peanut butter can increase the PB flavor, so feel free to give that a try here.
Avoid Dry Cookie Bars: Measure Correctly!
If you are not measuring your ingredients with a digital kitchen scale, you could accidentally be adding too much flour, causing hard, dry, or cake-like cookie bars. Learn more about how to measure ingredients for perfect results every time here!
The Chocolate Chunks
- Be sure to use high-quality baking chocolate, like Ghirardelli.
- I prefer to chop up bars of baking chocolate, but chocolate chips will work, too, if needed.
- I find semi-sweet or even milk chocolate works best in this recipe. Bittersweet is too dark to complement the nutty slightly salty peanut butter flavor, overshadowing it slightly.
Do I Have to Use Brown Sugar in Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars?
Yes! Lightly brown sugar adds moisture, extra chewiness, and that wonderful butterscotch flavor that complements the peanut butter so well. If you don’t have brown sugar on hand, learn how to make DIY brown sugar here. Dark brown sugar can also be used, but note that your bars will be a little darker in color, and will be slightly softer in texture.
What Pan For Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars?
I highly recommend using a 8-inch square metal baking pan for these Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars. I don’t recommend using a glass or ceramic pan, as these pans can take much longer to heat up and bake through, causing underdone middles and overbaked edges. Learn more about Glass vs. Metal Baking Pans here. Avoid using a dark-colored metal pan, as these pans will heat too aggressively and can cause dry or even burnt cookie bars.
Will Cookie Bars Sink as They Cool?
These bars may bake up taller at the edges and slightly sunken in the center – and that’s okay! Rich, delicious cookie bars may sink slightly in the middle – but if your bars sink too drastically, that may be due to undertaking.
How to Store Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars
Store Cookie Bars for up to 3 days at room temperature inside an airtight container.
Can You Freeze Cookie Bars?
Yes! Wrap the whole slab or individual slices in plastic wrap and store inside an airtight container or freezer bag for up to 1 month. Thaw at room temperature for a few hours before serving.
More Bar Recipes You’ll Love:
Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars
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Ingredients
- 1 stick (113 grams) unsalted butter
- 1 3/4 (350 grams) cups light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (135 grams) smooth peanut butter*
- 2 eggs plus one egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups (286 grams) all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 6 ounces (170 grams) semi-sweet chocolate chunks
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8 by 8-inch metal baking pan** with parchment or foil.
- In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar, stirring until smooth. Remove from the heat and stir in the peanut butter. Allow to cool.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Once the butter mixture is cool, add the eggs and yolk, one at a time, stirring until well combined. Stir in the vanilla extract. Pour the mixture into the prepared dry ingredients, and stir to create a very thick dough-like batter. Fold in 3/4 the chocolate chunks, reserving the rest for sprinkling on top.
- Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, spreading evenly to the edges. Sprinkle with the remaining chocolate chunks, lightly pressing them into the batter.
- Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top is golden and the edges are slightly browned. Allow to cool in the pan. Use the parchment to remove the bars before cutting into squares and serving. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Do these freeze well? I am baking for a wedding and putting cookies in the freezer until needed.
Hi Marisa! I’m sorry, but we haven’t tried freezing these bars. Let us know how it goes if you give that a try! 🙂
Usually Tessa’s recipes are spot on. But this one… after 30 minutes, the edges and top were brown but the middle was so raw. I didn’t find out till after it had cooled completely and I cut into it. Preheated the oven again to 350 and put it back in for another 12 minutes… still raw in the middle and by that time the edges and top were overcooked. I ended up trashing it because I can’t serve something like that.
I used my usual 8×8 dark metal pan. Followed the recipe except I used jif chunky instead of creamy, since it’s what I had.
I don’t know why it wouldn’t cook in the middle.
Hi Cindy! I’m sorry to hear these bars didn’t turn out as you had hoped! It’s so hard to know what went wrong without having baked alongside you, but I have a few thoughts as to what may have gone wrong.
– How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mis-measure flour/sugar/etc and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe. Tessa talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time, in this article here!
– Your oven might be running a little hot – which can cause the top to brown before the center is done. Do you have an oven thermometer to check that? Check out Tessa’s article here about ovens, full of great tips!!
– Lastly, you mentioned you used a dark metal pan. Unfortunately, dark metal pans tend to cook the outside quickly, leaving the middles underdone, more so than lighter colored metal pans. Perhaps this rich batter just couldn’t quite bake evenly in the darker pan.
Hopefully something here helped! Feel free to reach back out to us with any further questions – we are always happy to help!! 🙂
Thanks Kiersten for the reply.
This is actually the first recipe that I’ve tried using a scale instead of by volume.
I don’t have an oven thermometer, but I’ve baked plenty of cookies, bars, cupcakes, and quick breads successfully using the temperature in the recipes.
Maybe it is the combination of the rich batter and dark pan.
Anyways, thanks again for your help!