Royal Treat

For about a year now, we've been receiving The Baking Sheet, the bimonthly baking publication from King Arthur. While each issue has been filled with temptations galore, the husband and I have tried only one recipe from its pages--and I absented myself from that task, aside from prepping the mise en place for the husband's nuts.

Until today. I had some time on my hands, and the cooler weather had me itching to bake something. We'd already targeted the peanut butter squares in the Holiday 2010 issue as something the husband and I both would love to try, and I had gathered most of the ingredients I didn't already have over the past few weeks. When I found I didn't even have to turn on the oven to make these squares, I was sold.

Peanut Butter Squares1 C (9.5 oz.) peanut butter, crunchy or smooth
3/4 C (1 1/5 sticks, 6 oz.) butter
1 t vanilla extract
2 C (7 oz.) graham cracker crumbs
3 C (12 oz.) confectioners' sugar
2 C (12 oz.) chocolate chips
2 T (0.75 oz.) vegetable shortening
Sugar decorations (optional)

1. Melt the peanut butter and butter together. If you have a large microwave-safe bowl, use it and save yourself some dishes.
   
2. Stir in the vanilla.
   
3. Add the crumbs and sugar, mixing until evenly combined.
   
4. Press the mixture into a 9" x 13" pan (lining it with parchment can make removal of the bars easier).
5. In a 2-cup microwave-safe liquid measuring cup, melt together the chocolate chips and shortening at medium power in the microwave, then stir until smooth.
   
6. Spread the chocolate over the peanut butter layer.
   
7. Place or sprinkle the decorations atop the chocolate before it sets.

Yield: 8 dozen 1-inch squares.

Nutritional Info
Calories: 75
Fat: 6 g
Sat fat: 1 g
Protein: 1 g
Carbs: 6 g
Na: 25 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
As I mentioned earlier, I already had on hand some of the ingredients for this recipe:

• While the recipe doesn't specifically call for milk chocolate chips, that's what I used--Ghiradelli ones, to be precise, which have less fat and cholesterol but a smidge more sugar than the Guitard I like.
  
• The graham crackers I had squirreled away in the deep freezer turned out to be low-fat cinnamon grahams. Did that deter me? Hell no!
  
• I have both hormone-free regular stick butter and light stick margarine on hand, and I opted to use the light stuff. I know its higher water content can make a mockery of many dessert recipes, but in this case, I was hoping the higher water content might help me out if I found the peanut butter-butter melted mixture not willing to absorb both 3 cups of powdered sugar and 2 cups of graham cracker crumbs.

The recipe could not have been easier to put together. I suspect a less-fastidious person who isn't obsessed with getting every last speck and every last crumb and every last droplet incorporated could do it in less time than I took, so I highly recommend this recipe should you need a quick treat for some event, Gentle Reader.

As for the tastiness of the final product, the boys and I both heartily endorse these squares. The cinnamon grahams gave the bars a nice surprise, the husband and I thought. The boy was a bit skeptical at first when he saw me cutting into the big chunk, but when I told him basically I'd made a big-ass Reese's peanut butter cup, he was game. He took one bite and was sold. The Faudie scores a hit!

I suspect my use of the light margarine not only gave the peanut butter layer a slightly oily texture (not a heavy, oil, greasy feeling, mind you) but also didn't give the base layer enough "glue" to stick together forever, for when I started cutting into the product, several hours after I'd made the squares and after it had had maybe 30 minutes to warm up a tad after spending most of the day in the 'fridge, they didn't cut cleanly so much. To be fair, even the topping split and fissured like the crust of California during the earthquake in Superman. Did that dampen our enjoyment of the squares? Hell no. I majorly blew my commitment to tightly constraining my daily calorie intake once I had my first bite of these squares. So if you are anything like me, Gentle Reader, and trying to maintain a certain health regimen, perhaps you might not want to make these squares.