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All Fridays in December need something sweet, enter these Salted Milk Chocolate and Peanut Butter Blondies.
If there was ever a chocolate bar recipe to have in your back pocket, it should be these blondies. In fact, I should really be calling these Back Pocket Salted Milk Chocolate and Peanut Butter Blondies…but I’m feeling like that title might be a little on the long side.
Point is, these are the best blondies I’ve ever had. Granted, I haven’t had a lot of blondies, nor made a lot of blondies (although I do have a recipe on HBH from my very first year of blogging…the photos are scary), but still these blondies here are the best.
Milk chocolate + peanut butter + flaky salt.
I mean, what’s not delicious about that, you know?
I mentioned yesterday that my parents have a ton of guest in town. Here’s the thing, when my parents have guests in town, that means I have guests in town too. For those of you unfamiliar, I live next door to my parent’s house, maybe a football field away from each other, and everyone who comes to visit knows two very important things, my house has the food…and the alcohol.
Sometimes I really wish this was not the case, but for the most part, I don’t mind being the place that everyone comes to for good eats. My two younger brothers, Malachi and Red are currently home and with them come friends. Many friends. Red’s home for a couple snowboard competitions, and Kai is here to film both new recipe videos for the HBH Instagram and Red snowboarding…although he’s mostly been filming Red these days.
Anyway…we have a lot of people around right now. The boys will be here into January and the rest of the family comes in a couple of weeks for Christmas (can’t wait to see my cousins!), so I’m going to have plenty of mouths to feed. This means I need some really good dinners, and even more sweet treats,, for people to snack on when they come in from the cold (and let me tell you it is cold, it’s been in the single digits all week and snowing as I write this!).
I decided to make these bars kind of on a whim this week, after many failed attempts at what could have been a very cute holiday cake, but I just could not get it right. After a few cakes, many sticks of butter, and a sweater covered in powdered sugar, I threw in the towel and baked these blondies instead.
I needed to make something that I had confidence would be a success. Thankfully these turned out amazing, because I could not deal with another failed dessert. Again, you just can’t go wrong with anything chocolate and peanut butter.
I really don’t know why this is, but it’s always the simplest recipes that I love this most. This is a one bowl, mix, and bake kind of recipe. These blondies take less than an hour start to finish, and my guess is that you may even have most, if not all, of the ingredients on hand right now.
The recipe starts with melted butter and creamy peanut butter. Add some brown sugar and plenty of vanilla extract. Then add flour and a handful of semi sweet chocolate chips, stir everything up in one bowl (yes stir). Seriously so easy.
The key is layering the blondie dough with some additional peanut butter so you get gooey peanut butter with every bite. Then just bake. But you guys? Please, please just under bake these. Over baking them is going to ruin their deliciousness. Trust me.
During the last-minute of baking you’ll add that milk chocolate and let it just slightly melt over the top of the bars. Then, add flaky sea salt.
OH MY GOSH. I think I may have just described heaven in a Christmas Blondie Bar.
For real. These are fudgy, peanut buttery, moist, doughy, sweet, extra chocolatey, and just a little salty. AKA the most perfect dessert.
Ever.
If you decide to eat these warm, I totally get that. Baked goods are better warm, no matter what any recipe says. Warm and gooey beats cold every time.
PS. packing these up in a cookie box would make anyone who loves chocolate and peanut butter very very happy this holiday season. You should do it…just sayin.
Salted Milk Chocolate and Peanut Butter Blondies
Servings: 24 blondies
Calories Per Serving: 200 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) salted butter
- 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
- 2-3 ounces milk chocolate chunks
- flaky sea salt
Instructions
- 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.2. In a microwave safe mixing bowl, melt together the butter and 1/2 cup peanut butter on power level high, stirring every 30 seconds until melted. Stir in the brown sugar, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add the flour and baking powder. Transfer the bowl to the freezer and chill 5 minutes or until the dough is no longer warm to the touch. Stir in the chocolate chips. 3. Spread 1/2 the dough out in the prepared dish. Dollop and then gently swirl the remaining 1/4 cup peanut butter into the dough. Add the remaining dough overtop, don't worry if it does not fully cover the peanut butter. Transfer to the oven and bake for 20-22 minutes, just until set in the center. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the milk chocolate over the blondies. Return to the oven for 1-2 minutes to gently melt the chocolate. Sprinkle with sea salt. Let cool and then cut into bars. Store for up to 5 days in an airtight container.
Friday night plans? Blondie making and eating, while watching The Santa Clause. I love December!
“Yummy” says my three year old. Her daddy agrees. Don’t know how you could go wrong with all that sugar! I used mostly dark chocolate and didn’t have any brown sugar so just used cane sugar as we have masses here where the canes grow! The beauty of this recipe is that is it super quick. We don’t have a microwave, I just melted the butter and peanut butter in a pan first and then transferred to the mixing bowl. Barely any washing up, no getting hands dirty, delicious eaten warm as recommended.
If I was making in the winter I might add some cinnamon or nutmeg or something. Muchos gracias xx
HAha aw so glad you all loved this recipe, SJ! Thank you so much! xTieghan
O.K. To use organic peanut butter or would that be too runny?
Hi Molly!
Yes that will work fine! I hope you love this recipe! xTieghan
We loved these! Thank you!
Thank you Suzanne! xTieghan
Hi! These look so good! I want to make them in a 9″x9″ pan so they’re thicker in height, do you think this would work ok? More time in the oven?
Hi Mary,
Yes this will work you will need at about about 10 more minutes for the baking time! I hope you love the recipe, please let me know if you have any other questions! xTieghan
What are the conversion from US metrics to UK? So cups to grams?
Hi Alice! I am sorry, but I do not have them for this recipe! I would recommend using an online converter to get the measurements. Please let me know if there are any other questions I can help you with! xTieghan
Excellent recipe! I made some modifications due to food intolerance: I used 1 1/2 cup gluten free flour and 1/2 cup almond flour to replace the 2 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 cup and 1 tbsp of olive oil to replace the butter, 1 cup coconut sugar and 2 pinches of stevia to replace all the sugars. I only used 1/2 a cup of dark chocolate instead of 1 cup. I put the milk chocolate chips and salt after 15 minutes, otherwise the chocolate wouldn’t melt enough.
Hi Shinta! I am so glad this turned out so well for you! Thank you for trying and sharing your modifications! xTieghan
Oh my goodness! I saved this recipe and just made in on Superbowl Sunday. Usually when I bake most of it goes to work with me because I don’t like having the temptation around the house. My 19 year old son took one bite, looked at me and said, “Mom, you are not taking this to work!” Long story short, I made on pan on Sunday for home and made another pan on Monday for my coworkers. Everyone has been raving about them and I love how easy they are to whip up. Definitely will be making these again and again. Thank you Tieghan!
Thank you Tina!! I am so glad this recipe turned out so well for you! xTieghan
The ingredients calls for 3/4 cup peanut butter. In the directions you say 1/2 cup peanut butter. Which is it? Please and thank you, Michele
Hi Michele, you need 3/4 cup peanut butter. 1/2 cup is used in the blondie batter and the remaining 1/4 cup is used to layer through the batter before baking. It’s all listed out clearly in the directions. Please let me know if you have any other questions. I hope you love this recipe! Thank you!! xTieghan
I made these for Christmas for several different events and they were the favorites every time. I got so many compliments I lost count. Delicious!
That is so amazing! Thank you so much for trying this Taylor! xTieghan
Quick, easy, and delicious. Great game day dessert.
YES!! Thank you Ashley! xTieghan
I’m drooling over here. This recipe sounds fantastic and I hope I get around to making it ASAP! I just love the sweet salty combo of peanut butter and chocolate.
Thank you so much Colleen! xTieghan
Hi, I did this recipe in 2020, during our first lockdown 😅
Today i shared an old photo and a pregnant friend ask me for this!!! The problem is she is gluten intolerant. Do you have any suggestion to substitute regular flour? I’m not used to cook gluten-free, but I would like to make her happy…
Hi Marta,
I would recommend using Bob’s Red Mill gluten free flour, that should work well for you! Please let me know if you have any other questions! xT
These were delicious! Made these for a staff gathering and they were gone before lunch. Super moist and simple to make. An excellent blondie variation with the peanut butter and sea salt!
Thank you so much Jenni! I am so glad you enjoyed these blondies!
But it became too sweet can we control any hoe ? And this needs to be eaten how?
You can use dark chocolate and reduce the sugar if you need to. Sorry, I am not exactly sure what you are saying. Please let me know if you have any other questions. I hope you love this recipe. Thanks so much!! xTieghan
Hi Tieghan!
These look amazing and can’t wait to try them! I’ve baked peanut butter and kiss cookies before and used organic peanut butter and they did not turn out for me. Could I use some simple peanut/salt MaraNatha organic peanut butter in this recipe or do I need something more processed for an ideal result? Happy New Year to you!❤️ And, as you can see, I’m starting the year off following only healthy & green recipes…???
HI! I recommend using a peanut butter that is no stir instead of an organic variety. Please let me know if you have any other questions. I hope you love this recipe. Thanks so much!! xTieghan
Would the bars come out different if I ommit the peanut butter? I would like to make then without thanks!
HI! You can omit the peanut butter swirl, but I do not recommend omitting the PB from the actually cookie dough or the outcome will be different. Please let me know if you have any other questions. I hope you love this recipe. Thanks so much!! xTieghan ?