Peanut Butter Overload Cookie Bars

Just for the record, I could curl up and live in the middle of this pan of cookie bars. It combines chocolate, peanut butter, more chocolate and more peanut butter in one beautiful dish of yumminess. If these are your favorite things, too, you won't be able to stop with just one piece. Trust me. I speak truth.

The only ingredients you might not have on hand are the peanut butter cookie dough and chocolate-peanut butter candy, but the rest are probably already in your pantry. I used the pre-portioned cookie dough, but you can use the tube if you'd like because you're just going to press it into the bottom of the baking dish.

Ingredients: 

1 package refrigerated peanut butter cookie dough 

1 stick of butter

1/3 cup brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup baking cocoa

1/4 cup milk

3 1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 Tbsp vanilla

1 small package peanut butter cups, chopped

1 small package Reese's Pieces

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray an 8-inch square baking dish with nonstick spray.

2. Press cookie dough evenly into the bottom of the dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 23-25 minutes, until edges are browned. Allow to cool.

3. When cookie is cooled, place butter in a bowl and microwave at 30-second intervals, until melted. Add brown sugar, cocoa and milk, stirring until blended and smooth. Continue microwaving for 30 seconds until mixture comes to a boil. 

4. Remove bowl from the microwave and stir in powdered sugar and vanilla, stirring until blended and smooth.

5. Immediately pour chocolate over the top of the cookie layer, smoothing it out with a spatula.

6. Scatter candies over the melted chocolate and lightly press in so the chocolate will cool around them and keep them in place.