Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Bars Recipe

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I’m a huge peanut butter and chocolate fan! Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, if it is combined with peanut butter, I’m IN! We’ve done plenty of peanut butter desserts in the past such as the Peanut Butter Cup S’mores Cookie Skillet, Peanut Butter Graham Cracker Balls, Peanut Butter Caramel Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies Bars and No-Bake Peanut Butter Bars. While all those recipes are fantastic, I have to say that these Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Bars are probably my new favorite!

These cookie bars have a dark chocolate cookie layer, topped with cream peanut butter and finished with a dark chocolate topping. It just doesn’t get better than that, amIright?!?

Cookie Bar Ingredients

Ingredients Notes

While we used dark chocolate chips for the topping, any types of chocolate such as milk or semi-sweet will work as well.

Dark Chocolate Hershey’s Cocoa seems to work the best with this recipe, you can use regular baking cocoa if you prefer.

Don’t need so many cookie bars? Cut the recipe in half and make it in a square 8×8 inch pan.

Step by Step Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a 13×9″ baking pan with parchment paper.

Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. Set aside.

Using a stand mixer, cream the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugars. Mix in 1 tsp vanilla and the 1 egg. Beat until smooth.

Carefully add in the dry ingredients and mix until completely combined.

Spread the cookie dough in the prepared baking pan.

Bake for 18 minutes and no longer shiny. COOL COMPLETELY.

Mix peanut butter, powdered sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla until smooth. Spread over the COOLED cookie bars.

Place the dark chocolate chips and the vegetable oil in a bowl and heat on high in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time. Stir after each 30 seconds until smooth. Spread over the peanut butter layer in the pan. Sprinkle with chopped peanuts.

Let the cookie bars harden for a few hours or chill the bars in the refrigerator to allow them to set faster. Remove bars from pan and cut into 24 pieces.

You can store these cookie bars in an airtight container for up to 5 days or freeze them for month.