Peanut Butter S’mores Perfection
These peanut butter s’mores bars combine all the flavors of your favorite fireside treat with a soft peanut butter cookie dough base. They are a less messy, more flavorful hybrid that is even more irresistible than its inspiration. My recipe makes plenty to share (24 servings!), so it’s perfect for summer cookouts and get togethers. As with my chocolate chip cookie bars and brookies, we will intentionally slightly under-bake these bars for soft and chewy results. I do this because the bars continue to cook as they cool, and baking the whole way through in the oven would make for hard, over-baked results. To ensure yours are ready, I recommend using a toothpick and looking for a few moist, fudgy crumbs (not wet batter) rather than waiting for it to be completely clean.
Why I love them:
Subtle graham cracker flavor that complements the peanut butter perfectly 👌🏼 Plenty of marshmallows that melt as they bake, creating gooey tunnels of chewy marshmallow goodness. Real Hershey bars for that authentic s’mores taste, with the option to substitute chocolate chips instead!
What You Need
Here are the key ingredients in my peanut butter s’mores bars:
Peanut butter. Crunchy or creamy peanut butter will work in this recipe, but I don’t recommend using a natural peanut butter (the kind that separates). Substituting a natural peanut butter could result in too-dry, crumbly bars. Brown sugar. Either light or dark brown sugar will work here. If you don’t have any on hand, you can always make your own brown sugar. Mini marshmallows. Use the soft mini marshmallows (not the dehydrated kind that come in hot chocolate mix). These will create a lightly crisp, crackly top wherever they touch the surface of your cookie bars. The look is a bit messy, but totally delicious (and on-par with traditional s’mores with the messiness factor). Cornstarch. I love sneaking some cornstarch into my cookies and cookie bars; it keeps them soft and tender without drying them out like extra flour could do. Chocolate. Sure, you could use milk chocolate chips, but real s’mores flavor calls for real s’mores ingredients, so I like to use broken up Hershey bars. I save one bar for breaking up and pressing into the tops of my bars after they come out of the oven; this is optional, but makes the bars extra pretty!
SAM’S TIP: This batter is thick! In fact, it’s so thick that I actually broke one of my favorite spatulas trying to stir in the marshmallows and chocolate. The milk does help thin it out a bit, but just be aware that it’s going to take a little muscle to incorporate the add-ins! Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Peanut Butter S’mores Bars
SAM’S TIP: I recommend baking these bars in a metal pan simply because that’s what I’ve used and tested. A glass pan will work, but your cookie bars will take longer to finish baking this way. Graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows, and peanut butter…can you think of a better combination? 🤤 Enjoy! Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook Originally published August 20, 2018
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