Salty Honey and Peanut Butter Bars

June 1, 2015 by Terri @ that's some good cookin' 32 Comments

One of life’s most lovely flavor combinations, honey and peanut butter, comes together in Salty Honey and Peanut Butter Bars. The salt makes the honey really shine.

Happy June, everyone! I’m so glad to be back with you. I hope that April and May were good months for you; one day blurred into the next for me, but they were days filled with life…in all of its joyous, curious, confusing, brilliant, vexing, wild and wondrous adventures. I am still breathing, in and out with a few snores thrown in for variety.

Oh, which reminds me – here’s a tip for the next time a doctor or nurse listens to your lungs. When you are told to “breath”, it means to take a deep breath in and then let it out. Don’t take a breath in and hold it unless you are specifically told to do so. We are listening for air passage through your lungs. If you take in a breath and hold it, we only get half a sound. If air isn’t moving, we can’t hear it. Sneaky air.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

Don’t breath too fast, though; you may pass out and if that happens, there will be all kinds of drama and extra charting. And potentially thousands of dollars worth of testing to “rule out” other possible causes for you passing out. Yes, I just made a dig at the medical profession. You can thank the lovely practice of litigation for that one.

Now look at what you have made me do! I’ve gotten all distracted. Salty Honey and Peanut Butter Bars are where we are supposed to be.

One of my favorite sandwiches when I was a kid was peanut butter and honey. I loved the way the honey made the bread kind of crunchy, especially when the honey was spread on store-bought white bread. It was like bread candy.

I did an internet search on why honey causes some breads to get that crunchy layer, but there were no scientific answers available. Maybe I used the wrong search terms. Does anyone have a good, solid answer?

Peanut butter. It’s one of my favorite foods. In college, I used to eat it with a spoon. Sometimes my roommates and I would decompress after a tough day by eating spoonsful of peanut butter dotted with chocolate chips. What a great life!

Recently, in a moment of fervent peanut butter madness, I put together these Honey & Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars. The flavor profile is salty-sweet and I can only imagine what these bars must taste like with the drizzle of semi-sweet chocolate. (I am pronouncing curses upon my chocolate allergy right now.)

For added flavor and texture, I threw in some rough-chopped, salted peanuts. The soft crunch of the peanuts satisfies the need for textural changes in the chewiness of the bars. Salt from the peanuts, as well as added salt, offers both contrast and flavor enhancement to the sweetness of the honey and sugar.

No doubt, a variety of dry cereals or granola-type ingredients can be substituted for the Rice Krispies and/or nuts. I’m sure that this recipe would make an excellent granola bar!

Be warned, these Salty Honey and Peanut Butter Bars are slightly on the addicting side, as witnessed by my son in-law and the three grandkadiddles. Actually the testimonial comes mostly from the fact that my son in-law and His Majesty, The Two Year Old, stood at the kitchen counter for about 30 minutes happily cutting off small squares of the bars and eating them.

Honey and Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars

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