Recipe: Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

Each year we have this great potluck at McKinney (the advertising agency where Ben & I work) to support one of our co-workers. His daughter has a prosthetic leg, and is very active with the Challenged Athletes Foundation, an awesome organization that helps people with disabilities participate in athletic events. Coincidentally, Ben's cousin Alex also has a prosthetic leg and is very active with CAF - Alex, "Papa Bud" (Ben's grandfather) and Brenna (Ben's sister) competed a triathlon last year in San Diego before Papa passed away.

ANYWAY, Megan Wade made these amazing peanut butter chocolate bars for said potluck, and I begged her for the recipe but never got around to making them. Until, of course, I saw them on Pinterest. So thanks Glen & Elena, the reason behind the potluck, and thanks Megan, for bringing them to the potluck, and thanks The Girl Who Ate Everything for Megan's inspiration.

Ingredients

• 1 package yellow cake mix
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter (do NOT use store brand, trust me on this one)
• 2 eggs
• 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tsp vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325
2. Combine cake mix, melted butter, peanut butter and eggs in a large bowl with a hand mixer
3. Press the mixture into a 9x13 pan, reserving 1.5 cups to crumble on top later (ATTENTION: that says 1 and 1/2 cup. Not 1/2 cup. Don't make that mistake)
4. In a small pot, melt chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk and butter (don't stop stirring until it's totally melted)
5. Once melted, remove from heat and stir in vanilla
6. Spread chocolate mixture over peanut butter mixture in pan
7. Crumble the 1.5 cups of reserve peanut butter mixture on top, evenly
8. Bake for 20 minutes
9. Cool COMPLETELY before cutting into bars
10. Put on a pair of stretchy pants and call it a day