No-bake oat, chocolate and peanut butter bars

Mr CC’s workplace is hosting a big coffee morning for Macmillan Cancer on Monday in order to give everyone time to bake over the weekend rather than have to do it when they got home from work.  I’ve been beavering away making sponge cake and cupcakes and needed something very quick and easy for us to enjoy.  Cake for charity is an extremely worthwhile and noble thing but there’s also the saying that charity begins at home so I knew our own cake tin had to be well stocked too!

This really couldn’t be any quicker or easier.  Or any more delicious which, after all, is obviously the most important thing.  I am always partial to anything oaty – I’ve never met a flapjack I didn’t like, but the addition here of chocolate and peanut butter raises the bar and adds that salty-sweet element that everybody seems to adore.  The molten chocolate peanut butter mix was so glossy and beautiful that I had to photograph it:

The only tricky thing here is not to eat all the warm, buttery oat mix before it finds its way to the pan to chill.  Warning: do not taste a bit ‘just to see what it’s like’.  You will end up eating a pan full of warm oats and wondering if you have enough ingredients left to make a second batch!  I tasted a bit (which I realise makes me fall into the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ camp) and a second bit just to prove the first bit wasn’t misrepresentative of the whole...and after that had to dig deep into my self control reserve (not known for its depth) to leave it alone.  The smell was torturous to resist!

I think from this next picture you could guess that I’m left handed!

Ingredients

225g unsalted butter
100g soft brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
375g oats
200g milk chocolate
125g smooth peanut butter

Method

Line a rectangular pan measuring approximately 24cm v 17cm with baking paper or non-stick foil.  Anything close to these dimensions will work so don’t worry if your pan is different.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a gentle heat; don’t rush this – you don’t want the butter to take on any colour.

Stir in the sugar and vanilla.

Add the oats and stir well to combine.

Cook over the heat for about 5 minutes.

Divide the mixture in half and press one half evenly into the bottom of the prepared tin.

Put the remaining half to one side.

In a separate pan, gently melt the chocolate and peanut butter, stirring occasionally so the ingredients combine.

Pour over the oaty base in the tin and spread out so the base is completely covered.

Crumble the remaining half of oat mixture over the chocolate taking care to achieve an even distribution.

Lightly press the oats into the chocolate.

Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for at least three hours, ideally overnight.

Let come to room temperature before cutting into bars.

Bask in the glory of the wonderful thing you have created.

Eat.