how to be a domestic goddess recipes: chocolate peanut butter bars

like most foodies, i saw the "julie and julia" movie and loved it. my friend and i were inspired to go through a cookbook as well. so we decided on nigella lawson's book, "how to be a domestic goddess". the tagline of the book is: "baking and the art of comfort cooking" - which is totally up my alley. whenever people ask me what i like to bake and what my style is, i always say that it's baked comfort food, stuff your (my) mom would make. so it's the perfect book to go through. this was my first recipe to try cause i had the ingredients mostly on hand, it included chocolate and it took almost no time to make. awesome. the taste of these is very similar to peanut butter bon bons so that's pretty dreamy, but a simple approach to the same concept. anyway, enough chatter... get to making these!


ingredients for the base:
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

ingredients for the topping:
7 ounces milk chocolate (i didn't have milk chocolate, so i just used 11 oz. of semi-sweet instead of the milk and bittersweet)
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

stir all the ingredients for the base together until smooth. press the sandy mixture into a 9-inch square brownie pan and make the surface as even as possible.

to make the topping, melt the chocolates and butter together (in a microwave for ease, for a minute or two on medium) and spread the base. put the pan in the refrigerator to set. when the chocolate has hardened, cut into squares (after you let it sit out for a bit for the chocolate to soften just a touch, otherwise it will crack when you cut it)