LC Goober Note
“Oh. Dear. God.” is right. This recipe, from David’s favorite bakery in London, essentially remakes a PB&J as peanut butter blondies with a layer of jam smack in the middle. Makes us feel like a kid again.
Goober Bars
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350°F (176°C). Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish or roasting pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Coat the sides of the dish with flour and tap out any excess.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, peanut butter, and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, followed by the vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture just until combined. The dough will be quite stiff.
Using your fingertips, gently press about 2/3 of the dough into the dish. Schmear the jam in a thin layer over the dough, and then crumble or dollop the remaining dough on top of the jam. Sprinkle the top with the peanuts, gently pressing them into the dough so they don’t fall off later.
Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until the goober is golden on top. Cool completely in the pan before cutting into 3-inch squares.
Recipe Testers' Reviews
These PB&J bars make for an irresistible sweet treat. The layering of the creamy peanut butter base, gooey jam, and crunchy peanuts produces a pleasing dessert “sandwich.”
It’s hard to flour only the sides of the pan. I ended up flouring the bottom some too. Maybe there’s a trick to this, but I don’t know what it is. Having the parchment floured didn’t seem to cause a problem, though.
There wasn’t enough jam to completely cover the dough. I covered the surface as best I could without pulling up the peanut butter dough underneath. I think I might use some extra jam next time to get coverage closer to the edges of the dough.
The yield amount is accurate vis-à-vis the size of the pan, but I personally prefer smaller portions of these. I found them to be very sweet. They taste good, but only in small amounts. I could see cutting each bar into three 1-by-3-inch strips as part of a dessert sampler. I roughly chopped most of the peanuts. I left some of the small peanuts in halves instead of chopping them. I’d thought they’d at least somewhat adhere to the bars, but mostly they’re loose and scatter when the bars are picked up. I’ll try pressing them down next time to see if that helps. The creamed peanut butter portion of this was beautifully light and fluffy and I couldn’t help but try some from the beater…delicious.
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Susan Bingaman
I should be the last person on earth to make Goober Bars. Give me anything but jelly on my peanut butter sandwich (honey, pickles, jalapenos, the list goes on) and I’m a happy girl. BUT, these Goober Bars are darn good. The peanut butter part is very substantial—this is a thick bar—and just peanutty enough. I used a 16-ounce jar of creamy Skippy, which turned out to be a tad less than 2 cups. The dough held together when squeezed, so it patted nicely into the pan and crumbled on top of the jelly layer. Speaking of jelly, I used a 12-ounce jar of Concord grape jelly, which comes in at only a cup rather than 1 1/2 cups. Since that’s all I had, I went with it. The jelly layer was a bit thin but it was acceptable. I’m sure if you were using jam, marmalade, or preserves, the pieces of fruit would add bulk, getting it to 1 1/2 cups. I threw the peanuts on just half the bars and found I preferred them without. They get a little soft when the bars are covered and stored. One more thing: These bars may take an additional 5 or 10 minutes of baking. They’re pretty thick, and for the center to be set it takes a while.