Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Squares

Tweaked vintage recipe from my Maw-maw:
Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Squares

My Maw-maw was a fantastic cook.
She told of a time when she couldn't boil water - I could relate - but throughout my lifetime, I had never eaten anything that came from her kitchen that wasn't delicious.

Before she passed away, she had begun giving me her old cookbooks.
They were marked up - she rated recipes like I do.
And crinkled - she dog-eared pages like I do.
And inscribed - her friends gave her these books.
I cherish each and every one.

But the cookbooks weren't the only recipes I got from her.  Stuffed inside of these treasure chests were other little golden nuggets - her hand written recipes.

One of the most fun, yet often frustrating things about going through my Maw-maw's recipes is that she wrote them in pencil...on scraps of paper (like the backs of envelopes or canceled checks)...with no title...

See where I'm going with this?

You have no idea what you are making until you start to decipher the recipe.

As I was using one of her precious cookbooks for a canning recipe (as I do every year), several pages of newspaper clippings from decades ago as well as handwritten recipes came spilling out.

This recipe for Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Squares was one of them.  I'm calling it that since this is one of those untitled handwritten recipes - it's basically a homemade peanut butter cup.  You could easily adapt this to be vegan if you were so inclined.

This is very rich so you can just cut tiny squares (about an inch or so) and this recipe makes a whole casserole dish's worth; it most definitely feeds a crowd.

Maw-maw's recipe called for Oleo, I chose to use butter, because, well, I like butter.

Original recipe written by my Maw-maw on the back of a
giving request card for "Marshall's youth"

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Squares 

1/2 c. Butter, melted
2 c. Peanut Butter
2 1/2 c. Powdered Sugar
1/2 c. Light Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp. Vanilla

Mix together all ingredients with a handmixer.
Press down into a 9x13 baking dish making sure it is even.
Let that cool in the fridge while you make the topping.

1/4 c. Butter
6oz. Chocolate Chips (1/2 a bag)

Melt butter and chocolate chips.
Spread evenly over peanut butter mixture and chill.
Cut into squares before serving.
*Tip - Let the chill come off a bit before you cut it into squares.

This is part of FPT.