I’ve been wanting to make three different bars for awhile, but they were all so similar, and I couldn’t decide which one to make. So I rolled them into one. Nothing beats a layered combination bar.
Original Twix are a shortbread base, caramel middle, chocolate coating. Peanut Butter Twix are a shortbread base, peanut butter middle, chocolate coating. Millionaire’s Shortbread Bars are a shortbread base, caramel middle, and chocolate topping, similar to Original Twix. Tagalongs Girl Scout Cookies are a shortbread base, peanut butter middle, and chocolate topping, similar to Peanut Butter Twix.
Trying to choose between peanut butter and caramel, and which to keep and which to skip, is like trying to choose a favorite child. You just don’t. So I used them both. My bars are a shortbread base, peanut butter layer, salted caramel layer, and chocolate topping. Four elements, whereas the others only have three. The nice thing about the bars is that they’re almost no-bake, with only about 12 minutes of bake time for the crust. The remaining layers are just stirred together and poured on. No mixer needed, either.
Many times I read layered bar or layer cake recipes and I tune out because each layer has 10 ingredients, with a eggs needing to be separated and heavy cream whipped, and this bowl of ingredients folded into that, and before you know it, prep is 2 hours and you’ve got 17 bowls dirtied. There’s none of that here because I have a life. And I hate doing baking dishes. They’re everything I could want in a bar. So many layers of flavors and diverse textures, with peanut butter being the most pronounced of all the flavors.
The shortbread is buttery and adapted from The Best Lemon Bars. One tablespoon of corn starch keeps it a bit softer and more tender than many shortbreads, which can be dry and dog biscuit-like. Although it has some snap, it’s not brittle. The last thing I wanted was this crust cracking upon slicing. I despise that. But I loved this crust and I’m not usually a crust girl.
The peanut butter layer is dense yet fluffy, thanks to confectioners’ sugar stirred in, which adds sweetness and lightness. It also makes spreading this layer a royal pain. Just keep finessing it and take your time so you don’t rip up the shortbread layer, and it’ll all smooth out. Little sacrifices in the name of peanut butter are always worth it.
I adore caramel for it’s rich, buttery, sweet ways and used Trader Joe’s Fleur de Sel Caramel Sauce, which is what I used in the Salted Caramel Pretzel Blondies. I didn’t want to be bothered with unwrapping and melting caramels. You could make (Dark Rum) Caramel Sauce or 5-Minute Microwave Caramel Sauce.
Any thick, dense, good-quality caramel sauce will do. Don’t use a thin ice cream sundae topping, many of which aren’t even real caramel sauce. It will spread and run too much. I just love the gooey factor the caramel lends as I’m biting through the layers. It makes the bars messy to slice, but the best things in life are often a little messy. Or a lot messy.
However, if you keep them refrigerated, there is very little caramel splooge-out, much less than what the photos show. We were having a fluke-ish 92F hot snap in San Diego the day I decided to make these and they were sitting in a very warm house for hours. I have a knack for making melt-prone desserts on the hottest of days. The chocolate ties everything together and rounds out all the flavors. I used semi-sweet chocolate chips, and although Twix are made with milk chocolate, I wanted something a bit darker than milk, just not too dark. Not the time for a 72% Pound Plus Bar.
I used a smidgeon of shortening with the chocolate chips, which helps prevent the chocolate from cracking when slicing. I never want a Nanaimo Bars cracked-top repeat. The bars hit just about every note in the my Preferred Desserts Playbook. Buttery, snappy, creamy, smooth, peanut buttery, dense, rich, gooey, velvety, and chocolaty.
They’re like a marriage of Peanut Butter Twix and Tagalongs, in bar form. My husband remarked, “Wow. Those things are deadly good” and they are. They’re also deeply satisfying and you can literally feel the richness hit your belly after just a couple bites. Which is why I purposely kept the batch size small.
Related Recipes:
Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Dough Crumble Bars Tried this recipe? Leave a review! Consider leaving a 5 star rating if you’ve made and loved one of my recipes!
Milky Way Chocolate Cookie Crumble Bars
Peanut Chewy Payday Bars
The Best Lemon Bars
Caramel and Chocolate Gooey Bars (GF with Vegan adaptation)
Nutella and Peanut Butter Graham Bars with Chocolate Frosting (No-Bake)
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookie Bars
Nutter Butter Special K Bars (No Bake)
Marshmallow Peanut Butter Double Chocolate Pillowtop Bars
Nanaimo Bars (No-Bake)
Salted Caramel Pretzel Blondies
Twix fan? Peanut Butter or Original? Tagalongs? Millionaire’s Shortbread? I’m a huge fan of the whole family: shorbread crust, peanut butter, caramel, and chocolate, in any combination; preferably with all 4 components included. As you can see from my related recipes, I don’t lack for a shortage of bars using peanut butter, chocolate, or caramel. And even after writing my first cookbook with 100+ Peanut Butter Recipes, Peanut Butter Comfort: Recipes for Breakfasts, Brownies, Cakes, Cookies, Candies, and Frozen Treats Featuring America’s Favorite Spread, I’m still not sick of peanut butter. Book release is June 4. Thanks to everyone who’s pre-ordered your copy!
