Peanut Butter And Chocolate Chips Are The Start For This Heavenly Old-Fashioned Dessert

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There are few food duos that are as simple, tasty, and widely appealing as peanut butter and chocolate. When you combine these goodies, it's pretty much impossible not to make something delicious, so even the simplest sweets can be stunning. A shining example is our recipe for chocolate peanut butter haystacks, an old-fashioned, five-ingredient treat that comes together with minimal effort, yet tastes heavenly.

Haystacks are a vintage no-bake dessert that first rose to fame thanks to the iconic cookbook "Betty Crocker's Cooky Book," first published in 1963. The original haystack recipe used two new and hip ingredients at the time: butterscotch chips and crispy fried chow mein noodles, such as La Choy Chow Mein Noodles. Our recipe uses both of these, plus peanut butter, chocolate chips, and chopped peanuts, which add comforting, complementary flavors to the rich butterscotch and crunchy noodles.

To prepare the haystacks, we melt the butterscotch, chocolate chips, and peanut butter together in a double boiler, then combine the mixture with the peanuts and noodles. Scoop out individual portions and dollop them on a tray lined with parchment, chill in the fridge until the coating hardens, and you have a bite-sized treat full of irresistible flavors and textures — crispy, creamy, sweet, salty, nutty, and chocolatey all at once. Recipe developer Miriam Hahn recommends plating up your haystacks alongside fresh fruit like strawberries or butter cookies, creating a stacked dessert plate that's perfect for both casual and special occasions.

You can customize our chocolate peanut butter haystacks in many ways while keeping the recipe effortless. Just swap out an ingredient or two, or toss some add-ins into the bowl of noodles before mixing the whole thing together, and you have a new and exciting twist on this budget-friendly dessert recipe.

One of the easiest swaps is to use dark chocolate chips in place of your typical milk or semisweet chocolate. This makes the haystacks feel more grown-up, tempering the sweetness of the butterscotch with a bittersweet note. To make the haystacks more chocolatey while keeping a nice nutty flavor, consider using Nutella or other store-bought hazelnut spreads in place of plain peanut butter. Or, pump up the PB by replacing half of the butterscotch chips with peanut butter chips.

As for toppings and add-ins, putting an extra drizzle of melted chocolate and a shower of peanuts over your haystacks before they go in the fridge adds visual appeal and extra flavor. Sprinkling a little sea salt on top of the finished sweets ups the sweet-salty contrast even more. To make your haystacks even more appealing to kids, try topping them with sprinkles or folding mini marshmallows into the noodle mixture. Shredded coconut, mini M&M's, caramel sauce, or even a sprinkle of cinnamon are other delicious additions. No matter how you mix them up, these haystacks are one recipe peanut butter fans will want to make all the time.