Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Brownie Thingees

sYesterday Daughter and her family were feeling puny. She had taken G2 to the doctor the day before and G2 had enough flu symptoms that the doctor gave Daughter enough Tamiflu (I'm not sure of the spelling but you get the idea) for the whole family.

I thought they needed something to cheer them up. A few weeks ago Daughter emailed me a recipe and said she'd sure like it if I made a batch for her and the family sometime. I thought that was just the ticket so I made "Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Brownie Thingees" except that I didn't have one of the ingredients called for - peanut butter chips - so I substituted caramel bits. Even though I'd never made this recipe before I thought the caramel bits would work ok. They rather remind me of the "Hello Dolly" recipe from back in the day.

First you need graham cracker crumbs. It's faster for me to use my small food processor than to crush them up with my rolling pin so that's what I did.



Then you melt a stick of butter in the bottom of a 9x13 pan. I just do it on top of the stove but you could melt the butter in a saucepan or in the microwave, then pour it in the baking pan but I try to not dirty too many things when I'm cooking. I love to cook but I hate the clean-up part.

Please pardon the looks of my poor old baking pan. It's lived a long, full life but it's still got some life in it and I'm going to use it until it just can't be used anymore. You see, it has a wonderful lid that snaps on ever so nicely and I just love that.




The recipe called for chopped pecans so I just used the food processor right after crushing the graham crackers. There really wasn't any need to wash it before chopping the pecans.


Melting the butter in the pan

The recipe also calls for 1 can of sweetened condensed milk. Let me say here that I did wash the top of the can before I opened it.

After the butter is all melted, pour the graham cracker crumbs in and spread them out evenly.

I kind of patted them down evenly. It didn't look like there was enough butter in there to me but I went right by the recipe and it worked out just fine.

Top the graham cracker crumbs with coconut.

Top the coconut with chocolate chips.

Top the chocolate chips with peanut butter chips - or caramel bits like I did - or you could even use butterscotch chips if that's what you like.

Next, sprinkle on the chopped pecans.

The last layer is the sweetened condensed milk. Just pour it evenly over everything and

bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool and cut into bars.

I cut one small bar out for AD to try, then sent the rest to Daughter's house. It brightened her and her family's day. And that was my objective. (Daughter said the caramel bits worked just fine.)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Brownie Thingees

1/4 lb (1 stick) butter, melted

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1 cup coconut

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup peanut butter chips (or caramel bits or butterscotch chips)

1 cup chopped pecans (if I were making them for me I'd probably go a little heavier on the pecans)

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs over melted butter that's been put in the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Add other ingredients over the top in the order listed above.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool and cut into bars.