Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

On Thursday a friend saw my status advertising the previous recipe as a good winter dish and told me it was time to update my blog, Spring had arrived! If you were in or near DC you may have agreed after our lovely high of 70s sunny day. I even caught myself dreaming of a salad with toasted sunflower seeds, spinach, strawberry vinaigrette and perhaps some early bell peppers. Others may dream of beaches, I dream of salad. Ok, ok, beaches sounds incredible too! How a beach picnic with salad?

Where was I? Oh, right, Spring.... I told her that sadly I don't consider it Spring in a culinary sense until local farms start to sell asparagus. Sadly I was right and this weekend the cold weather is back a vengeance. For being a buzz kill and to help fight us through the last few weeks of windy, cold weather I offer you brownies.

Unless you're the most zealous locavore, I think chocolate and peanut butter is an anytime food. Morning, afternoon, evening, night, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, apocalypse, rapture, etc. Give me chocolate with a little bit of peanut butter and I am happy. This recipe is also incredibly easy so if you're feeling the Winter blues here's your cure.

When I say easy, I mean easy because in my early days of baking December of 2008 to be precise, I attempted my first batch of brownies. Brownies that I think six year olds have managed to master, but a 22 year old Leran somehow over-baked into a charred mass of chocolate concrete. In 2012, though, I decided it was high time I overcame my shameful past. The big secret is when you test your brownies the toothpick won't come out clean like muffins, cookies or cakes, but rather it will come out clean-ish.

Also, make sure you have a brownie pan before your batter is ready unless you want to scramble to beg your neighbor to use theirs. This may or may not happened to a certain blogger you know. He may have had to toss out his pan because of an over frozen truffle mixture being impossible to clean. Moving on....

 

 

 

 

  

Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

by Leran

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Keywords: bake dessert vegetarian chocolate peanut butter brownie American

6018522

Ingredients (16 brownies)

• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (natural)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon milk, half and half or heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, cold
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup Reese's Minis (frozen, the colder the better... keep in freezer until the last minute)
• 1/3 cup smooth peanut butter

Instructions

1. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Line the bottom and sides of an 8×8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper or foil, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides.

2. Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, milk and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Stir from time to time until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger fairly quickly after dipping it in to test. Remove the bowl from the skillet and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot. It looks fairly gritty at this point, but don’t fret — it smooths out once the eggs and flour are added. (You can try to do this step with a microwave. I would suggest melting the butter and combining the rest of the ingredients and then heating for a little while long ensure they all mix together)

3. Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. Stir in Reese's Minis. They will begin to melt as you stir, obviously we want them to melt as little as possible, but don't worry! Spread evenly in the lined pan.

4. Using a spatula or butter knife swirl peanut butter throughout the brownie batter. Do you best not to over mix. I did and it still tasted great, but it would've been better if the peanut butter and chocolate flavors stayed separate.

5. Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter. This could take as little at 20 minutes, but it took me closer to 40 minutes so check every 5 minutes after 20. Let cool completely on a rack. (I highly suggest following Deb's advice and putting the entire pan in the freezer for 15-20 minutes to help you cut straight lines.)

6. Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into 16 or 25 squares.

Powered by Recipage