Almond Bark Cookies/Bars

Two posts in one week! Woohoo! I’m on a roll!!! Ok, so I kind of cheated. I’m feeling rather lazy these days, not quite motivated to dig out the mixer just yet. I did A LOT of baking for Christmas. A lot A lot. And both my KitchenAid mixers are starting to feel a bit neglected now that I’m on strike. I’ll cross the line any day now but for this week….no-bake desserts it is!

These are another childhood favorite. My Grandma B used to make them for me every Thanksgiving. I can eat an entire batch myself. I know…because I’ve done it. I titled these “Cookies/Bars” because Grandma B always made them as drop cookies but I was feeling super lazy (noticing a theme?) and I had two of my favorite kiddos coming over after school to play with Anna and had about 15 minutes to throw these together. So they became bars, and I really like them that way! These also freeze really well, so while I would like to have eaten the whole batch, I exercised a teeny tiny bit of judgement and put them in two gallon sized ziploc bags and put them in the freezer.

If you make these in drop cookies, half this recipe. I actually doubled the original recipe because I had a bunch of cereal to use before it got stale and I think it was a good move for making them into bars so that’s how the recipe is written below.

Start with vanilla almond bark (way cheaper than using white chocolate for this although you could). Melt it in the microwave. Add peanut butter and stir until it’s one melted mixture of yum.

Then dump in a bunch of rice krispie cereal, peanuts, and mini marshmallows.

There’s a chance I under-estimated the volume here. Mixing all this in the bowl I was using proved tedious but I got it done. Then I decided to toss in part of a bag of mini chocolate chips because Lindsay from Love and Olive Oil did that in what she called “Avalanche Bars” which look pretty similar to me, so I thought I would follow.

Make sure everything is coated in the melted mixture and press into a cookie sheet. I threw mine in the freezer to set while I went to pick up the kiddos and when I got home I dumped it onto a cutting board and chopped it into bars. I asked the kids what to call these, one said “Peanut Butter Surprise”, the other said “Marshmallow Surprise”, Anna said “more, more”

Almond Bark Cookies/Bars

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Ingredients

• 4 lbs. vanilla almond bark
• 2 cups creamy peanut butter
• 4 cups peanuts
• 6 cups rice krispie cereal
• 4 cups mini marshmallows
• 1 -2 cups mini chocolate chips

Directions

Melt the almond bark in the microwave according to the directions on the package. Add the peanut butter and stir until melted.

Add the rest of the ingredients and stir everything until well coated. You’ll need a really big bowl for this.

Press mixture into a cookie sheet and let set or drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper and let set.