These easy peanut butter bars are made with my very favorite cereal ever, Peanut Butter Crunch, and loaded with Reese’s Pieces for even more peanut butter flavor.
I’m not sure if it’s the rich peanut butter flavor or how they stay crisp in milk, but Peanut Butter Crunch has always been one of my very favorite cereals. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner to turn it into a dessert! Since plain old cereal bars seemed too boring, I added Reese’s Pieces, which always make me think of the movie E.T. It might be the best product placement of all time if I still remember it after all these years.
Do you even remember E.T.? That movie came out a l-o-n-g time ago, so long ago that it makes me feel a little old. I have always been the youngest in my circle of friends. I started kindergarten at four with a February birthday, so throughout school I was nearly a year younger than most everyone in my class. In high school, I made a lot of friends with kids a year or two ahead of me, so I was really the baby of my crowd. I hurried through my undergraduate degree to finish in three years and graduated college at 20. Matt and I got married over spring break just before graduation, so I was just barely out of my teens when I started married life. Here in San Francisco, a lot of people don’t get married until their 30s and have kids into their early 40s. Even though we waited 10 years to have our first baby, I was still considered a young mom around here, with most of my parenting peers being five or more years older than me. All this kept me feeling like I was the young one. Until I started blogging. I have made a lot of blogging friends who are just now turning 30 or who aren’t even there yet. Suddenly I’m the old one! How did this happen? Some of you may have never seen E.T. or never even heard of it. If you’re not a child of the 80’s like me, suffice it to say that Reese’s Pieces were important in that movie, so I will always associate this candy with an ugly but lovable extraterrestrial. I also associate them with fall desserts like these tasty and super easy peanut butter bars. I hope you love this dessert as much as I do!
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Crunchy Peanut Butter Bars
These peanut butter bars are loaded with rich peanut flavor and quick and easy too!
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 16 1x
Ingredients
- 10.5 oz. mini marshmallows
- 6 tbsp. butter
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 12.5 oz. Peanut Butter Crunch cereal
- 4 oz. Reese’s Pieces candies
Instructions
- Spray a 9 x 13″ pan with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a large microwave-safe boil, heat marshmallows and butter for 90-120 seconds, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted and smooth. Stir in vanilla.
- If the bowl is big enough, stir in cereal until evenly coated. If it’s not big enough, pour cereal into an even bigger bowl, pour marshmallow mixture over the top, and stir until coated.
- Stir in Reese’s Pieces, and pour cereal mixture into prepared baking sheet. Spray one side of a sheet of wax paper with cooking spray, and use the sprayed side to press the cereal evenly into the pan. Allow to set up for at least two hours (4-6 hours is better) before cutting into squares and serving.
- Prep Time: 5
- Category: Dessert
Looking for more cereal goodness? Try these recipes on for size!
Julie @ This Gal Cooks says
Oh yum yum yum. Give me all of the peanut butter things! These look great, Andi!
Andi says
Thank you, Julie! :)
Carol at Wild Goose Tea says
You are soooo right. These are a peanut lovers dream bar. So many of these type of store bought bars taste like a comb of cardboard and sawdust. These are the ones to have!
Andi says
Thank you, Carol! Cereal bars like this are so easy to make that I’m just as happy to make my own instead of buying the storebought ones. I don’t want a cardboard comb that’s for sure ;)
Karen @ The Food Charlatan says
What! graduated college at 20!! Dang girl. Also, these bars. Yes. I gave up cereal for breakfast a year or 2 ago in an effort to be healthier, but that doesn’t mean we can’t dessert-ify them :)
Andi says
Hi, Karen! Matt was two years ahead of me in school and took five years to get his undergrad degree because he did one year of a work/study program. I went straight through the summers to finish in three so we could graduate at the same time. Then I immediately realized that I had no desire to use a biology degree and went on to grad school to get my master’s in something else. And now I’m a food blogger and a mom. ;)