This time of year, I’m usually basking in summer with not much to do. But thanks to a recent job promotion, I’m burning the candle at both ends. I wake up, work, work some more, and that’s kind of how it is. But at least the sun is shining!

And I have these to sustain me. The base is my favorite flourless peanut butter cookie dough filled with my even more favorite candy aisle choices: patriotic peanut M & Ms and Baby Ruth bars. Heck yeah!

Here’s the thing about holidays: baking bloggers LOVE them. You see, it’s hard to get constant inspiration from just life itself, so holidays provide a lot of ideas. Or at least, they provide a lot of candy with color schemes. I can’t tell you how excited I get every time the candy matches the season. It’s so darn cute.

Now that I’ve been blogging for two and a half years, I sometimes sit back and take stock of what I’ve accomplished so far. You see, I’ve been teaching for much longer, so compared to the time I’ve been in that profession, my time here on JAB is a drop in the bucket. Even so, I’m happy with where I’ve gotten so far with this little blog, and I try and take time to enjoy it.

Just a few days ago, I was texting back and forth with an old friend of mine. He had a rough day and wanted to know if I had “baked anything for the pain.” I immediately let him know that I’d just been paid to buy lots of ice cream and bake something to go with it, and that he should come on by with a huge spoon. In that moment, I felt very lucky. Lucky to be paid to work with ice cream, and lucky to have good friends to come over and share it.

They say that it’s super healthy to keep your brain active by trying new things and doing crossword puzzles. In theory, I love crossword puzzles, but my house is too hectic for me to sit back with that cup of tea and enjoy one on a regular basis. So instead, I’m a big fan of trying new things. This blog pushes every ounce of my creativity, and I’m so happy it’s here. Even though my day job is about to get a lot more hectic, I still want to hold on to what I’ve created here on JAB.

One of my favorite discoveries this season has been transferring flourless peanut butter cookie dough into bars. It’s even better than regular cookie dough. Wanna know why?

It’s the most intense peanutty flavor ever. When you reduce a cookie dough to mostly the star ingredient (peanut butter, in this case), it’s amazing. The flavors are so good. Add in peanuts and candy and the happiness overflows.

Another good thing about this cookie base? No mixer. About five seconds and no chill time is pretty much the situation! Feel free to thank me later.

It’s summer and things should be quiet, but they’re not. I’m cool with that, since we only go around once. Trying new things is important! Well, as long as we take our dessert breaks in between. We all need a moment here and there!

You all know that I have a passion for bar cookies, and I have an equally great passion for chocolate and peanut butter. In my world, no snack beats a Reese’s peanut butter cup. In fact, the absence of PB cups in life is a really good reason to never give up on sugar.

These are dense, chewy, peanut buttery, and flourless. That’s right. Why do you need flour when these bar cookies are decked out with enough peanut butter cup goodness to satisfy even the biggest fanatic?

To put this in perspective, my son ate these. One of my favorite bloggers in the whole universe, Dorothy, has a category for food her husband actually ate. I should institute a similar category for my own son, because he usually turns his nose up at my baked goods and opts to eat rice cakes instead. No, I am not kidding.

He ate these yesterday, and then he had seconds, and then he asked for more later in the day. #success #victoryismine

Of course, he needed some extra TLC after a particularly violent fight with his little sister. Here’s how it went down:

Boy: (screeching at top volume)

Me: What happened?!

Boy: (exhibiting red arm) She pinched me!

Girl: (also crying at top volume) No!

Me: (to Girl) Why are you crying?

Girl: It was sort of an accident!

She maintained that injuring her brother was “sort of” an accident and I never got more details. So I “sort of” punished her by sending her to her room in floods of tears while my son nursed his arm and talked me into giving him more of these bars.

On my trip to Hershey’s Chocolate World a year ago, I learned the secret to baking with peanut butter cups by observing their baked goods and methodology. In my field, that’s the best kind of research. Anyway, I noticed that they use the snack-sized (i.e. regular-sized) Reese’s in their baked goods, which makes so much sense. It packs a more powerful PB punch. So now I try to use them when I can.

The cookie base is simple: peanut butter, egg, sugar, baking soda, salt and vanilla. The baking soda and egg help these bars to rise, and the absence of flour makes the texture super dense and chewy. These are perfection.

If you’re a peanut butter fan, these bars are for you. No Reese’s addict can resist!

See, Sarah has been looking for a recipe for these cookies for quite a while, and I’ve been promising to get on it. Well, it’s been about a year since I said that, so better late than never. I hope.

For pretty much my entire teaching career (minus the three years I spent at my first school), I’ve spent my early mornings with Sarah. She’s the person I talk to first every day between Monday and Friday, and it’s kind of a ritual for us to catch up before heading off to our classrooms to teach.

And she loves chocolate chewies. This whole thing started when Sarah started raving about the ones you can buy at Whole Foods. Then Starbucks started serving them, too. They have a brownie-like quality owing to the cocoa, and there’s no flour in them. Plus, they only use egg whites. And no butter. So these cookies are kind of healthy. Shocker!

Anyway, as soon as I caught on to the chewies, I vowed to find a recipe for Sarah. And in so doing, I learned just how easy these cookies are to make. They require very few ingredients and no advance preparation.

The way you can tell that chewies are done is all in the cracks. When they’re fully baked, the cookies form multiple cracks. It actually looks pretty cool. And they also get glossy.

This week, I’ve decided to make cocoa the star ingredient of the recipes I share. This first one couldn’t be simpler, so be sure to try it. It’s sure cheaper than buying them at an expensive coffee chain!