By Early August in Tulsa. Brayden is forty-four weeks old. The baby-naming-ceremony catering job is Saturday. The week has been a steady prep week without the high-anxiety pitch of the rehearsal-dinner prep two months ago. The smaller job and the systems already-in-place from the rehearsal dinner mean the prep this week has been routine rather than urgent.
The peanut butter cake bars are a one-pan dessert — dense, peanut-butter-forward, frosted with a chocolate-peanut-butter glaze that sets to a thin shell on top of the cooled bars. The bars are kid-friendly in the sense of texture (soft, not crumbly) and flavor (the peanut-butter-chocolate combination that most American children gravitate to) but the bars are also adult-friendly in the sense of being intensely peanut-buttery without going saccharine.
The recipe is one I had developed for the cafe’s short-lived 2020 dessert experiment that did not survive past the first three months. The cafe had tried a small dessert-and-coffee evening service in the summer of 2020 (just after the soft-launch, just before Cody’s second arrest derailed Mama’s expansion plans) and the peanut-butter cake bars had been the most-popular item on the small menu.
Sunday I made a double batch. One pan for the freezer (cut into squares, wrapped individually, stored in a freezer bag), one pan for the week. The freezer batch is the slow-burn carbohydrate-and-sugar that will get me through the early-September fortieth-birthday prep without me having to make a fresh dessert that month.
Peanut Butter Cake Bars
Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 16
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the frosting:
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/4 cup whole milk
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup chopped peanuts (optional, for topping)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven. Set your oven to 350°F and grease a 15x10-inch jelly roll pan or a 9x13-inch baking pan.
- Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- Heat the wet base. In a medium saucepan, combine the butter, water, and peanut butter. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat.
- Combine. Pour the hot peanut butter mixture over the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Add the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract, and mix until the batter is smooth.
- Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 22–25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Make the frosting. About five minutes before the cake is done, combine the butter, peanut butter, and milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and stir in the powdered sugar and vanilla until creamy.
- Frost while warm. Pour the frosting over the warm cake and spread evenly. Sprinkle with chopped peanuts if desired.
- Cool and cut. Let the bars cool completely in the pan before cutting into squares.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 420 | Protein: 6g | Fat: 20g | Carbs: 56g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 290mg