Squealin' With Delight

Thought you might like to have one of the recipes I made yesterday. I'm baking things for our church's booth at Squealin' On The Square. That's a huge BBQ festival here that attracts about 30,000 people each year.

I got this recipe years and years ago from a 4H leader when I worked with that program in Pickens County. I had not made it in a long time but saw the recipe when I was looking this week through my recipe collection. I like it because it makes a lot of cookies. Just the ticket when you need a big batch. Coconut makes these bar cookies "chewy" but you really don't taste it. It's mostly a peanut butter/brown sugar flavor. So glad I resurrected this recipe. I had forgotten how very good they are. It won't go back to the bottom of the pile for a long time!

Chewy Peanut Squares

2 cups self-rising flour
2/3 cup shortening
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2-2/3 cups flaked coconut (a 7-oz. can if you find a can--I only found a bag of coconut)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine shortening, peanut butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend thoroughly at low speed. Add flour and coconut. Mix only until blended.

Spread in a greased 15x10x1-inch baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until done. Cool completely. (Cut into 1-1/2 inch squares to yield 5 dozen.)


I did bake other cookies but not as many as I had hoped to, so I packaged up this snack mix instead. If you like a PayDay candy bar, this is for you. Just mix dry roasted salted peanuts and candy corn, about half and half. That's it. I labeled it "Payday Mix."

If you aren't doing this for a sale, it looks cute in a pumpkin-shaped glass candy dish--for about a day and a half. That's as long as it lasted at my house last year.