No Bake Peanut Butter S’mores Bars

Okay look. I think I need to explain how I think about myself in the kitchen. I am a diligent recipe follower. You’ll never catch me in a comment section with an “I substituted 4 eggs instead instead of the canola oil and air fried it at 500° for 30 minutes and it didn’t turn out :((((” Baking recipes get followed verbatim, even if that means running to the store in the middle of a task to get more vanilla extract. With cooking I can riff a little—I can swap out or add some ingredients with very little brow sweat involved but I still keep close to the original instructions. If you put me in the kitchen and gave me all the ingredients to make a cake or a lasagna but no recipe, I don’t have the confidence that what I could produce would be edible.

I am not a good cook, I am a good recipe follower.

It’s something I’m working on. I have a small stack of cooking resource books that delve into more of the science of cooking and baking. I’ve read and reread dozens of King Arthur Baking blog posts about how yeast works and why dutch-processed and natural cocoa powders aren’t interchangeable. I feel more knowledgeable but I still don’t have the confidence to go into the kitchen unprepared with a recipe. I loathe the idea of wasting food/money on a loaf of bread that tastes like sawdust or a stew that makes your nose wrinkle. So I keep cooking everyone else’s delicious recipes and ignore the nagging desire to just experiment a little.

For those of you who don’t know (literally all of you), when my mom passed away I came in possession of her two bright pink single-page photo albums she’d used to hold her favorite recipes. I would flip through them occasionally, just for the nostalgia factor but they sat unused until I was out of college. There was one particular recipe—the buttermilk poundcake—that I had special memories attached to and would make on rare occasions and those became the only times I would flip open the books.

Even a few years ago when I started cooking and baking more regularly I rarely reached for the little pink albums. I think part of me was afraid the recipes wouldn’t hold up as an adult with a ~refined~ palette so I let them be. But then, y’know, QUARANTINE and suddenly these little books became a source of comfort. Instead of idly flipping the sleeves of cards, I sat at my kitchen island and read the words like a book. And suddenly the memories started coming back. Recipes I’d scanned dozens of times and would’ve sworn I’d never tasted practically karate chopped me with nostalgia. It was weirdly emotional? And invigorating? Kinda weird? Yeah, all of it.

One of the recipes that particularly demanded my attention was simply titled “S’mores.” In the 10+ years I’d had the books, I don’t think I’ve ever read this recipe card, instead seeing the title and assuming my mother was being particularly long winded about how to put a Hershey bar and marshmallow between some graham crackers. But actually reading the recipe I realized this wasn’t a classic s’more but instead a no bake bar recipe using cereal (and margarine, ALWAYS margarine). And then I remembered the extra dry crunch of the cereal as I bit into one of these and the weird bouncy marshmallows in the mix. I didn’t remember particularly *loving* them as a kid but I knew I had to make them and see.

Y’all they were delicious. Not in that gourmet, laminated a million times, 100% organic dark cocoa and free range honey (is that a thing?) way. But in the definitely good enough, just like mom used to make way. Even my partner—a marshmallow hater—ate several of the bars. I had rediscovered a treasure and that made me warm and fuzzy.

And then I had the idea to make a peanut butter version. And then I just kind of ignored it because, as simple as it seemed, I didn’t know where to start. Do I just add peanut butter and some Reese’s cups? What if that threw off the ratio of, I don’t know, something? What did the corn syrup do? Should I take it out if I’m adding peanut butter? I have no doubt there’s a million people who would’ve just started throwing things together in total calm and like, good for you BUT WHAT IF IT DOESN’T WORK?? Having anxiety is exhausting and kept me from trying for DAYS.

I guess at some point I realized the stakes of trying to peanut butterify this already simple recipe were so low, surely whatever I tried would be edible. So I made an iteration with peanut butter, all semi-sweet chocolate, no corn syrup, and peanut butter chips mixed in with the marshmallows. It was good but not great. There were half a dozen things I needed to change but I was surprised to realize I knew exactly how to make those changes to get an improved end product. The second batch had the fatal flaw of absolutely CRUMBLING as soon as the knife hit it but, flavor-wise, it was perfect. And finally, on try 3, I had my perfect peanut buttery s’more child.

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When I saw I almost cried I’m not exaggerating. Immediately I thought about all the people who would’ve gotten it right on the first try, who wouldn’t have fretted for days about how to even get started. And then I just said fuck it and let myself bask in my accomplishment. There’s always people more knowledgeable, more capable, more tenacious, and fearless than you. That is wonderful and good but also PEANUT BUTTER S’MORES! I MADE THEM!