peanut butter chocolate bars (wholesomely divine)

I shouldn't be posting these today, on one of the last beautiful, hot days of August with the hints of autumn all around, and the bountiful summer harvest well underway. Surrounded by cucumbers, zuchinni, tomatoes. I have fabulous harvest recipes for the most scrumptious cream corn and baked tomato sauce and apple dessert.

Maybe that's exactly why I'm posting this - because these scrumptious bars were something so different than what we've been eating. A little almost-illegal respite.  I didn't plan it that way - I made these to celebrate our daughter's peanut tolerance + love (peanut allergy runs in our families). They were magnificent. So here they are.

Now I suppose they could be made with regular crisped rice cereal, sugar and corn syrup. But the sweet hit we got from these would make me reticent to go that route, even if I didn't care a fig about what I was putting in me.

Make the crisped rice layer:

- 1/4 cup of water heated in a small saucepan, with 3 tbsp of brown rice syrup and 1/5 cup evaporated sugar cane (or your sugar of choice) and stir until combined. With a candy thermometer, cook over medium, bringing it to a boil, and cook it until about 235F. This takes a while with brown rice syrup, but do not despair.

- Remove from the heat, stir in about 3 tbs of coconut oil (or butter) and pour over the mix, quickly mixing it and pouring it into your lightly greased 8" square pan. I used my hands, and pressed it all into the bottom (not the sides). Cool at room temperature.

Next work on the peanut butter layer.

- In a bain marie (in a pot sitting inside another pot filled with water), I stirred 1 cup of creamy organic peanut butter with about 1/4 (or even 1/5) of an organic chocolate bar (the large thin rectangle kind).  I used milk chocolate, but you can use dark too. When it was all melted and smooth, I poured it over the cool crust. Then I refrigerated it for about an hour and a half.

 

This is how it looked after I'd poured the peanut butter layer onto the crisped rice layer.

Then I combined the same amount of chocolate above (1/4 to 1/5 of a chocolate bar broken into small pieces)  with 1/2 tsp of brown rice syrup and 4 tbsp of butter/coconut oil. Again, I used a bain marie. I cooked it until it was smooth, and then poured it over the now-chilled layers in the pan. I popped it back in the fridge until it hardened.

These are rich, and delightful in smaller chunks. This recipe lasted longer than I thought it would, and we indulged often. Very often.  I didn't even cover them in the fridge, and they lasted well for a few days.