Monster Cookie Bars!!!

A post from Kelli–

A week or so ago, I was having a hankering for something sweet.  I knew that I had an arsenal of recipes that I’ve tried already, but I was looking for something new.  I had been on pinterest looking for a new recipe, but I get really frustrated when the link from the pin takes you to some crazy weird website that didn’t link their pins the right way so it doesn’t take you to the recipe or it takes you to a completely different website all together.  I finally got sick of it and pulled out a good old church cookbook and guess what?  I took me right to the section I was looking for without 17 million crazy click through ads….Sometimes I forget to do things the good old fashioned way instead of the fancy wango-fango way.

Anyway, after few minutes, I found something that sounded fantastic–M & M Bars!  With being gluten free, I have found that oats and oatmeal don’t bother me so I tend to gravitate toward recipes that use them as that often means that there is little flour used in the recipe.  While I am very greatful to have gluten free flour available, I don’t do enough baking to keep so many kinds around and sometimes the mixes can leave a little gritty taste, so if it uses oats, that’s less gluten free flour I have to use.

Almost as soon as I had them out of the oven, Jason came home and was digging in them to tell me that they didn’t set up correctly.  I told him to get his pesky hands out and just wait until they cooled off  because they had a filling that needed to set up a bit.  After they cooled of though–Man o Man–They are GREAT!  If you plan to make them for a gathering, I’d recommend making them and then hiding them because our whole pan was gone pretty fast!

Here’s the recipe if you’d like to try them too:

2 cups quick oatmeal

1 1/2 cup flour (I used a gluten free mix and couldn’t taste it at all)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup butter

1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup peanut butter

1 1/2 cups m&m’s

Stir together oats, flour, sugars, and baking soda.  Cut in butter with a pastry blender or by hand.  Reserve 1 3/4 cup crumb mixture.   Press remainder into a 10 x 15 pan.  Bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes.

Stir together sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter.  Set aside.  Stir m&m’s into remaining crumb mixture.  Spread milk mixture over crust in pan (be careful because the crust may try to stick to the milk mix and spread with it) and then sprinkle with m&m mix.  Bake at 375 degrees for 15 more minutes.

And there you have it folks–Peanut butter bar heaven!  Let me know what you think!