Salt River Bars

So, because it's over a hundred degrees every day here, (and no, I'm not exaggerating, for those of you who live in the cooler climates)  I decided to go no-bake today. I also wanted to whip up something quickly before I headed to the gym. Not to mention it uses the combination of salty-sweet and who doesn't love that? Besides communists.

For this recipe, I didn't do any measuring, I just kind of went with my gut on flavor so I will give you some guidelines and depending on the size of your pan (I used  a large bar pan from Pampered Chef) you may feel inclined to alter your recipe as well.

Bars

Ingredients:
Saltine crackers
Peanut butter chips
Chocolate chips
Brown sugar
Butter
Oil

Line the pan with foil and lightly spray or grease with oil or shortening. Arrange a layer of Saltine crackers to cover the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the peanut butter chips.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and the brown sugar together until edges are bubbling. (You will need to do a one-to-one ratio. I used 1 1/2 cups of butter and 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar. It should take approximately 5 minutes.)  

Pour 1/3 of the butter-sugar mixture onto the layer of crackers and peanut butter chips as evenly as possible. Repeat the process of crackers, peanut butter chips and sauce twice more, finally covering the top with a layer of crackers. (I actually ran out of crackers so half of my bars will have less crunch I suppose.)

Melt chocolate chips and oil in the microwave, gradually - stirring in between. (The ratio here is 1 cup of chips to 1 tsp. of oil I ended up using the entire bag of chips and 3 tsp. of oil. Be sure to stir in between and don't microwave the chips for too long or you will burn them. After a minute total, the entire bag should be melted.)

Pour the melted chocolate over the bars and spread evenly. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the top. (I didn't have sea salt so I just used Kosher salt.)   Put in the fridge to allow the chocolate to set. (I went to the gym and then came back and cut them. An hour should be enough time for them to set.)


(Hint - if you would like it to be easier to cut later, you can take them out after about 15 minutes and score some cutting lines. Then put them back in the fridge to allow chocolate to set comepletely.)



Now, when I cut these, I thought I would be "smart" and use the lines of the crackers as my guide. After cutting, I think that not cutting on the edge of the cracker actually gives it that layered look like in the first photo. If you know someone who has a tendency to judge something before they try it just by the ingredients and basically talks themselves into not liking it before it even touches their lips, (like my husband tends to do)  you may want to create your own cutting lines. I thought these were delicious and super easy. I hope you all do too.