Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Chocolate Bars

According to Pinterest, the key is STACKING YOUR GOODS SKY HIGH

I love living in San Francisco. There's just always something interesting and unique to do in this city - just this last weekend, I participated in Journey to the End of the Night, which is basically a giant game of zombies/tag throughout the city. If you happened to be in the area Saturday night and suddenly saw two thousand people running for their lives, don't worry, the world wasn't ending. We were just being being ten years old again - and it was awesome!
Granted, it took us a long time to make it through the first two checkpoints before we were captured trying to get to the third, but it was still a lot of fun. Plus, it was great preparation for Run for Your Lives, which is the 5K zombie run coming up in the spring that I plan on participating in as well.

Still, it was a nice change of pace to leave SF for a few days. I traveled across the country on a business trip to Penn State, nestled in a cute little college town with a tiny airport. I was amazed at the lack of line at airport security and the cab rides that cost less than five bucks. Travel to and from Pennsylvania was less fun however, and by the time I made it home last night, I was exhausted and in no mood to do anything.

But it was Wednesday, so I gathered up my baking gear and dove right in. I hadn't decided or planned on making anything, so I just whipped something up using the ingredients I already had.

I settled on making a sort of bar and decided to use the same cake mix crust technique from before, except this time using chocolate cake mix. I then mixed together several layers of sugary goodness - a melted chocolate butter layer, followed by a layer of peanut butter and cream cheese. I was inspired by the filling from this recipe from Betty Crocker.

The result was very tasty - peanut buttery, sweet, gooey. Admittedly, it was nothing too unique or different, but it's good to fall back onto something traditional once in awhile. After all, it's traditional for a (delicious) reason.

As a side note, just watched The Vampire Diaries, and all I can say is: IT'S BEEN FIVE SEASONS. You would think these people learn that 1) making deals with crazy people always ends up badly, and 2) always, always read the fine print before jumping in with a spell. There is ALWAYS a catch. Good grief. Still two episodes behind on Revenge, one behind on HIMYM, and need to watch tonight's Scandal and White Collar.

Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Chocolate Bars
Makes 32 bars (cut into 8x4)

Crust:

• 1 box of Devil's Food Cake Mix (I used Duncan Hines)
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter

Chocolate Layer:

• 3/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate
• 1/2 cup of milk chocolate
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter

Peanut Butter Layer:

• 1 package (8 oz) cream cheese
• 2/3 cup peanut butter
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Cookie Crumb Layer:

• 1 cup of the crust recipe, set aside

1. Mix the ingredients for the crust together. Mixture will be very crumbly, but you will be able to press it together. Put aside 1 cup of the crust mixture for the cookie crumb layer. Press the remaining crust mixture into the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan until it forms an even thin layer. Roll/press the set aside crust mixture into 1 inch balls and set on a cookie sheet. Bake both pan and cookie sheet at 350 for 10 minutes. Let cool. 
2. Melt chocolate with butter at 30 sec intervals until completely mixed. Poor over cooled crust and chill in fridge for 30 minutes or until chocolate sets. 
3. Mix peanut butter layer ingredients together with an electric mixer until fluffy. Spread over set chocolate layer. 
4. Take cookie balls baked in step 1 and crumble them over the top of the peanut butter. 
5. Chill bars in fridge overnight. Cut into 8x4 pieces and enjoy! :)