Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars

When I'm not cooking, I'm a complete dork and enjoy reading food blogs.  My blog was recently added to All Top News (Food) so I look at the other blogs with "blog envy".  I kept coming across postings about peanut butter and jelly bars, so I figured I would take a shot.    

Ingredients

2 sticks - Unsalted Butter (at room temperature)
1 1/2 cups - Sugar
1 tsp - Vanilla Extract
2 - Eggs (at room temperature)
16.3 oz - Creamy Peanut Butter
3 cups - Flour
1 tsp - Baking Powder
1 1/2 tsp - Kosher Salt

18 oz - Strawberry Preserves
2/3 cups - Salted peanuts (coarsely chopped)

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2) Grease a 9 by 13 cake pan. Line it with parchment paper, then grease and flour the pan.

3) In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar with a hand mixer (or stand mixer) on medium speed until integrated.

4) Add the vanilla, eggs, and peanut butter and mix until all ingredients are combined.

5) In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the flour mixture to the peanut butter mixture and mix until combined.

6) Spread 2/3 of the dough into the prepared cake pan and spread with a spatula. Spread the preserves evenly over the dough. Drop the remaining dough evenly over the preserves. 

7) Sprinkle with chopped peanuts and bake for 45 minutes (cool and cut into squares).