My dates, which I bought at Whole Foods, using the bulk foods dates – ended up being a challenge for me. Frankly this recipe didn’t turn out well. I contemplated making my own using the grinder. It was the natural kind and it had oil at the top and that created a nightmare. I went to Whole Foods and I bought the almond butter in the jar. Next time I make these almond butter bars, I may try using the crust recipe from the peanut butter brown bar recipe, as that crust held together quite well. I also made the 2-Layer No Bake Peanut Butter Brownie bars about 2 weeks ago and had no trouble cutting those after being in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. The bars are delicious, so hopefully this trick will help someone else! I still lost some crust, but not nearly as much as before.
I came home this evening–now they’ve been in the freezer for ~24 hours–and was able to cut them into bars with minimal crust crumble. All the crust just fell apart so I ended up just putting the uncut bars back into the pan to deal with another time. I tried to cut it into bars after leaving the dish in the freezer for ~30-45 minutes. However, I still had the same problem with the crust being crumbly. I made this recipe after reading all the reviews of people having difficulty with the crust crumbing, so I made sure to add more dates and to make sure it felt doughy between my fingers before pressing it into the pan.
