Ooey Gooey Butter Bars

Holy sweet jeebus. These things are DEEEELISH. I found this recipe quite some time ago on the same site as the amazing Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, but hadn't gotten around to buying the cream cheese (that sh*t is expensive!) So last night, JJ and I took Molly for a walk and stopped in at the corner store to pick up the missing ingredients ($6 later...sheesh).

TOTALLY WORTH IT. I brought a couple to work for people to try and J got mad that I was sharing (who raised that boy?) because he loved them so much!
Important to note that these are really only ooey and gooey when you first take them out of the oven. After they are just soft and delightful.

P.S. these are also nut-free for my crazy friend A who must be the ONLY person in the planet who doesn't like peanut butter (weirdoooooo).

Ooey Gooey Butter Bars

From Lil' Luna

Ingredients:
1 box of yellow cake mix (although might be fun to try other flava flaves)
1 egg
1/2 cup of butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
1 brick/cup of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened (don't mess around with no name for this this one, just get the name brand. Trust me.)
2 cups powdered sugar

Method
Pre-heat oven to 325 and grease a 9x13 pan (I think mine was 9 x 13, but I don't really know)

Mix the cake mix, egg and butter together until completely blended and smooth. Press into your pan:

Next, beat your 2 eggs together in a bowl. Add the softened cream cheese, (make sure it is quite soft, otherwise you'll get weird lumps in your mixture) and the powdered sugar. Pour this mixture on top of your base layer:

Now, Lil' Luna said to bake it for 40-45 mins. However, I found mine was ready to come out in 30mins. Just make sure you watch it and take it out when the edges start to go golden brown.

When it's all good to go, "sprinkle" on some powdered sugar. I don't have one of the nice metal mesh strainers to sprinkle it on, so I just kind of used my fingers:

Don't Judge.

It's probably best to wait until this have cooled...I waited a whole 10 mins until I dove right in. Yum yum yummers!

Enjoy!

- Lisa
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Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookie Bars

So the other night, around 8pm, I was sitting on the couch, watching baseball (woooooo...) and feeling restless. We hadn't gone grocery shopping in about 2 weeks so my baking supplies were limited but I HAD to get up and do something. Running had helped earlier in the evening, but my twitchy legs were back. 

So, I took to trusty Pinterest to help solve my baking woes. I kid you not, the FIRST pin that I saw was this guy here. I got excited because I thought MAYBE I would have all the ingredients, so excitedly I clicked through to the page and lo and behold, even in Mother Hubbards bare kitchen, I still had enough ingredients to bake this *happy dance*

So, I made up a batch, using this exact recipe from Lil' Luna and they lasted all of 2 days in our apartment because they were THAT DERN GOOD!

Thursday eve rolls around, baking supplies are even LOWER but I needed another treat to leave my hubs while I was away for the weekend. I still had almost everything in the original recipe except the neccessary amount of butter.

What is a girl to do?

When in doubt, add peanut butter (I just made that up, PB is not always the answer. Neither is drugs, kids)

HOLY HEAVEN. You MUST TRY THESE. NOW.

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sifted flour (I don't own a sifter, so I just stir the lumps out of the flour)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and greese a 9 x 9 Baking Pan (I didn't have one, so I used a Cornell casserole dish instead...don't judge)


Melt butter, sugar and peanut butter in a microwave safe bowl until melted (you will need to stir a couple of times during this process). Set aside and let cool.

**I am extremely impatient with this kind of thing so I danced around the kitchen for a little bit, played with Molly and bugged my hubby. **

Once it it cool, or coolish in my case, add the egg and vanilla and mix together until well combined. Add the dry ingredients slowly and blend well.

Press mixture into your baking pan. Next (don't you worry, silly goose, I didn't forget the chocolate!) sprinkle the chocolate chips on top. Go wild with them, but don't be excessive.

Put in the oven and bake for about 20-25 mins or until it is golden brown and you can do the toothpick thing. You know, where you put the toothpick in and if it comes out clean, it's done?

Again, allow to cool for as long as you can. Again, in our household this was approximately 3.5 mins.

*NOTE* If you're making this for a party or a dinner or more than just you and your significant other, I would double the recipe. However, J doesn't like to share, so I don't need to worry about taking this anywhere.

Also, this would taste SPECTACULAR with ice cream.

Everything Will be Alright in the End...

Truth :)