Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Bars

5 from 30 votes

Peanut butter cup cookie bars are the ultimate in decadence with the perfect combination of chocolate and peanut butter.

Prep Time20

Cook Time30

Total Time50

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Bars Recipe

Servings:

Calories: 692kcal

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a 9×13 metal baking pan (with square edges preferred) with parchment paper.
Add butter, sugar, and brown sugar in a large mixing bowl. Use a standing mixer or hand mixer to beat together until creamy.
Add eggs and vanilla extract, then continue beating until light and fluffy (2 to 3 minutes), scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally.
Add flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate mixing bowl. Whisk together.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and beat just enough to incorporate.
Add semi-sweet chocolate chips and stir with a large spoon to mix.
Add half of the chocolate chip cookie mixture to the prepared baking pan. Flatten evenly into the pan.
Remove the wrappers from the Reese’s peanut butter cups and place them into the pan over the bottom layer of chocolate chip cookie dough. If needed, cut the peanut butter cups in half to fill as much of the space as possible.
Spoon the remaining dough over the peanut butter cups and press to spread it to cover.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until almost fully set. The top should be evenly golden brown, and the center should not jiggle much. These cookie bars are best just a little undercooked.
Once the cookies have cooled completely, lift them from the pan and cut them into bars.

This chewy cookie bar recipe yields more dough than a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe, which lends itself nicely to fully covering the pan for the base and then has enough cookie dough to cover the peanut butter cups, too.
Use a piece of plastic wrap or a spatula sprayed with non-stick cooking spray to press the dough into the pan. It tends to be a bit sticky.
Refrigerate the peanut butter cups for about 10 minutes to make them easier to cut.
Oven temperatures vary and may need to be recalibrated periodically to ensure they are accurate. Make sure to check your bars at the lower end of the recommended baking time.