PB Cup Bars

I’m dating this guy, Scott, who is super smart and attractive and nice. He’s athletic and funny too…and one of the craziest (in a good way) things about him is that he’s open-minded about my wacky food personality. I made him promise that if he eats something I make and he doesn’t really care for it, that he’ll be honest—because (1) it wouldn’t hurt my feelings and (2) if I think he likes it, I’ll make it again!

So far, dessert-wise, I’ve suckered him into trying pb cups, avocado pudding, and mini layer cakes. I think the pb cups are his favorite, but maybe I just make them most often because they’re the easiest to put together quickly. Avocado pudding is probably the actual easiest to make, but I never seem to have enough ripe avocados when I need them (how crazy is that in California?!), and it’s best made ahead of time and refrigerated, which I seem to have trouble arranging.

Last night, we were making dinner at his house (lemon pepper chicken with rosemary, and roasted broccoli). We sauntered around Whole Foods together gathering ingredients (and Pinot Noir), and decided we’d also do pb cups… But WF doesn’t have mini muffin wrappers, so I thought I’d just try to make a “bar” version of the cups…

The original pb cup recipe works just fine with this—but depending on the size of your pan, you’ll need to change the recipe proportionately. The bottom layer of this was super firm when I added the top layer, but I considered adding the chocolate a little earlier and then swirling them together a little—Scott’s preference was to just do the two separate layers this time. I obliged. Next time, I’ll make it swirly and see what happens 🙂

So it’s a square pb cup—and the texture, as you can imagine, is pretty much like fudge. The upside? It’s faster and easier to dump batter into a pan than it is to portion it into wrappers. The downside? It’s way harder to exercise portion control with this version!

I think I’d like to do these again and add some texture in the middle and/or on top. I’m thinking cacao nibs, hemp seeds, goji berries, things like that.

News/Notes: I’m kind of on a break from online teaching this week (outside of having to set up two new classrooms and finishing grading work from last week), and I’m waiting to hear if I passed a test for a potential job opportunity in the fitness industry. Honestly, it was the hardest test I’ve ever taken (I failed the first time I took it because I was too slow and ran out of time leaving about 1/3 of it blank), 3 hours of essay questions, and I have to get an 84% to pass. So, I really have NO idea if I passed or not…even though I feel like I really know what I’m talking about. It’s pretty subjective to grade essay questions, and I sure had to rush to get done before I ran out of time. The waiting part of that makes me feel like I’m in limbo at the moment–if I get the job, it’ll be full-time. If I don’t, I want to focus more on wellness coaching…but I have to wait and find out about the job before I set that process in motion. I suppose it could be stressful to wait—but I’m just kind of enjoying the break!

Any New Year’s Eve plans? Scott and I haven’t decided what we’re doing yet. I’m not usually a go-out-and-party type of NYE person, but it could be fun to go out to dinner or come up with some kind of fun thing to do. Oh, and since I’m sure some of you will be wondering, Scott is the same guy I drunk dialed and invited to Thanksgiving dinner after only knowing him for three weeks. It went well 🙂

Have you tried the PB Cups yet?!