Back to School PB&J Bars

Make these when your kids come home for school

They will be so happy. Oh, this would be great in a lunchbox, too. Oh, yeah, absolutely

This is my friend, Shea, y'all. She's from Dallas, Texas, and she's the mix-and-match mama

We got to be friends through our Twitter accounts, and I just love she and her family

They are the nicest people, and Shea's a fantastic cook. Now, you're the mix-and-match mama

Why don't you call it mix-and-match? Because I learned when I first got married and had kids that my friends were having a hard time coming up with dinner ideas

and they were comfortable with doing the same method. They would mix spaghetti every night

So I said, you know, just mix and match it. Add ground turkey. Let's make it Mexican. You know, then the other night you could make it Greek

You know, so you just take one recipe, one method. Mix and match it

And then all week your family's eating different things, but you feel comfortable in the kitchen making your food

So today you're going to show me something that I know my boys are going to be crazy for, peanut butter and jelly bars

That's right. This is one of my favorite bar recipes to make for my kids. Let's do it

Yeah, okay. So I love starting with box cake mixes. I do too

You know, these are just pre-measured ingredients. It's a smart shortcut. Okay, cake mix

Yeah, so these are great. So this is a yellow cake mix I start with that and then we gonna add a half a cup of vegetable oil And then we gonna add two eggs to this All right And when you use simple ingredients like this you know there only what four ingredients five ingredients

My kids don't lose patience in the kitchen and so they will stay in the kitchen with me

We're cooking together. We're, you know, they're learning about measuring and flavors and it's a really great time in the kitchen with my kiddos

Not too complicated at all. All right, we're gonna add in our eggs and then we're gonna mix this right here

All right. Get that going. Is it working? Let's see. There we go

Look. Perfect. We're mixing our yellow cake mix. Two eggs. And it's got a GoPro camera on it, of course

Oh, perfect. Because why not have a GoPro on your mixer? I should have one of those at home. Shea, tell me about your kids

I know you've got a son and a daughter, and they're four and five. I have a five-year-old daughter named Kensington and a four-year-old son named Smith, and they

are so much fun. They are the best time of my life, absolutely. We're going to add in a cup of peanut butter

Can you measure out a cup of peanut butter for me? Perfect. I'll tell you. No, they are so fun

I like to eyeball a lot of stuff. Oh, I do, too. I figured this is about a cup. No, big old scoop is all we need

We're going to add it right in here. So Jack and Matthew are five years apart

That's perfect. That's about a cup, right? Yeah. Look at that peanut butter

That what makes it healthy when you add peanut butter Totally justify eating a big old bar later All right we going to mix that right on in Your kids are only one year apart They are Do they get along pretty well Is it too close What do you think No I think they inseparable

I mean, they are best little friends, but also they get each other into all the trouble

But they are such good friends. Did you find that Smith kind of accelerated on some things

from watching his sister? But see, that's kind of so close. You're almost in the same stage at the same time

They're almost in the same stage. But Matthew, five years behind his brother Jack, Matthew watched Jack, so he skipped sippy cups

He wanted a big fork, and he's grown so fast. We skipped, like, three years of underwear size

He went from a two, he's wearing a five-six now. He's three years old, he weighs 50 pounds

He would dominate these peanut butter bars. That's awesome. We're going to have to save him one. Okay, we're going to put about two-thirds of this batter

Can you spread it across the bottom for me? Okay. And this has been sprayed

It has been sprayed with cooking spray. That way they won't stick. You can mix and match this any way you want

My kids love strawberry jam the best. But you could use grape jelly, you could use marmalade

I mean whatever floats the boat of your kids, you could use that. So he's gonna spread, oh, we need to save about a third of that

Save a third. Yeah, save a third of that. We're gonna dollop with a third

He's gonna spread that across the bottom. Okay I got this spread out for you All right so I gonna just eyeball it because that just easier I gonna eyeball it and we just to dollop some of our strawberry jam across it Because when it bakes in the oven it going to melt and smooth on out

Oh, blackberry would be good in here. Oh, yeah, I love blackberry. Oh, raspberry. You just mix and match away

And then just take it and just kind of crumble the remaining third of our batter across the top

Yep. And again, when it bakes, it's all going to just melt out over it

We're going to bake it about 30 minutes at 350 degrees. All right. Perfect. Pop that in our preheated oven

350 degrees? Yeah, bake for 30 minutes. That looks awesome. Just cut it and taste it

You want to? Of course. Now, I've got enough of this to share with everybody. Thank you so much

You're welcome. Look at that. So good. That is beautiful. Perfect. Come on, have a bite

Mmm. It was fantastic. And if y'all search around the Paula D Network

you can find more delicious dessert recipes as good as this one. Thank you, Shay

Thank you so much. You're awesome. Thank you. Peanut butter and jelly, y'all