A couple of weekends ago I was lying in bed in the afternoon, just awake from my customary nap and thinking about what to do next. I decided I should make those peanut butter squares, the ones with the shortbread crust and the kinda fluffy peanut butter layer on top.

I came downstairs and did an internet search for the recipe, and discovered that there is no such bar. Apparently a peanut butter bar is a thing with peanut butter and maybe oats on the bottom layer, and a chocolate layer on top. Delicious, I’m sure, but not what I wanted.

Confused and alarmed, I then searched for peanut butter pie. Most of those seem to result in fluffy cream-type pies — also intriguing, but still not what I wanted.

So I made something up. I started with the shortbread crust that forms the basis for many delicious squares in what we call the yellow cookbook: The Pleasures of your Food Processor by Toronto cookbook icon Norene Gilletz.

For the top layer, I channeled some of the energy of those classic peanut butter marshmallow squares, but I wanted some fluffiness too, so I added an egg.

The result is an intensely peanut buttery, sweet square.

Peanut Butter Squares

For the crust:

1 C all-purpose flour
1/2 C butter
1/3 C white sugar

For the top:

1 C peanut butter, room temperature (I use the hippie kind with no added anything)
1/3 C butter, room temperature
2/3 C brown sugar (white sugar is fine too)
1 egg
vanilla, the normal amount
salt, the normal amount

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Put the flour, butter, and white sugar in a bowl and rub together with your fingers or you can use a pastry cutter if you like, I guess. It will end up grainy, but it will clump together like wet sand.

Press the mixture into a square 8”x8” pan and bake for 20 minutes.

Put the remaining ingredients in a bowl and cream them together on high speed with an electic mixer until the mixture is fluffy and quite light in colour.

Spread the mixture over the pre-baked crust (you don’t have to cool it) and put it back in the oven for another 20 minutes, or until it starts to brown around the edges.

Let cool (the hard part!) and serve in smallish squares.