Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars

Pastry Dough
¼ C (1 ¼ oz/35 g) granulated sugar
1 ½ C (7 ½ oz/213 g) all-purpose flour
¼ t salt
½ C (1 stick/113 g)( cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces)
1 large egg, room temperature

Peanut Butter and Jelly Filling
1 C (2 sticks/224 g) unsalted butter, room temp
2 C (18 oz/516 g)smooth peanut butter
1 ¾ C (7 oz/198 g) powdered sugar
1/2 t vanilla extract
2 C (23 oz/640 g) jelly or preserves of your choice

Crumb Topping
¾ C (3 ¾ oz/106 g) all-purpose flour
¼ t salt
½ t (2 g) baking powder
¼ t (1 g) baking soda
¼ t cinnamon
1/3 C (2 1/3 oz/65 g) dark brown sugar
2/3 C (2 1/3 oz/66 g) old fashioned rolled oats
6 T (85 g) cold unsalted butter

Spray a 9×13-inch pan with baking spray. Line bottom with parchment paper and also spray. Set aside.

Dough – Put sugar, flour, and salt in food processor and pulse until combined. Add butter and pulse until sandy. Lightly whisk egg and pour into food processor. Pulse until dough begins to hold together. Form dough into disk, wrap tightly in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Dust work surface with flour. Using a rolling pin, roll dough into a rectangle slightly larger than 9 by 13 inches and about ¼ inch thick. Gently guide dough into pan and pressing lightly to completely cover the bottom of the pan. Trim off excess. Place in freezer for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375°F.

Remove pan from freezer, line it with aluminum foil, and fill with pie weights. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove foil and weights and bake for another 10 minutes, or until the crust is lightly browned. Transfer to wire rack to cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 325° F (162° C).

Filling – In bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter until completely smooth. Add peanut butter and beat until combined. Add powdered sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. Scrape down sides of bowl as necessary. Spread mixture in an even layer onto crust. Put pan in refrigerator while you make the crumb topping.

Topping – In large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and brown sugar until mixture is a uniform color. Stir in oats. Cut in butter with a pastry knife until loose crumbs form.

Assembly – Spread jelly in even layer over peanut butter filling. Sprinkle topping on until jelly is no longer visible. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pan halfway through, or until the top is brown.

Transfer pan to wire rack to cool completely before serving.

Makes 15 large bars

Today let me tell you about my latest creation, Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars or better known in our family as PB & J bars. Anyway, I decided to go with a recipe from a proven source even though it was clearly more involved. How complicated could a basic bar cookie recipe be anyway? This one started out, as most due, making a dough crust upon which you layer the peanut butter, jelly and crumb topping. I thought a dough crust shouldn’t be hard. Well, after assembling the ingredients, mixing them, rolling it out, which proved to be more difficult than it should have been, I was ready to transfer the dough to the baking dish and then put it in the freezer to chill for 30 minutes. Once chilled, I placed pie weights on the dough and into the oven it went for 15 minutes at which time I removed it along with the pie weights and back into the oven it went for another 10 minutes. So far, what I thought was going to be quick and easy, had already taken 1 ½ hours and I was only done with making the crust. Luckily, the remainder of the recipe moved along more quickly but still involved more time than I had planned. The next step was preparing the peanut butter filling which was straight forward and turned out tasting wonderful. After spreading the peanut butter filling over the dough, it was back into the refrigerator for chilling while I prepared the crumb topping. Once complete, I removed the baking dish from the refrigerator and began final assembly. The first step was spreading jelly over the peanut butter followed by sprinkling the crumb over the jelly. Then it was back to the oven again for another 25 minutes to finish baking. And of course, to drag out the process a little longer the bars needed to cool completely before cutting and serving which was another 45 minutes longer. At this point and before I sampled my first bar, I had easily invested 3 ½ hours.

So now you’re probably wondering how did my PB & J bars turn out? They turned out heavenly and well worth the effort. More importantly, would I do this recipe again and recommend it to others? Emphatically yes to both questions but the next time, I’ll make sure I have little else planned for the day.