recipe: Peanut Butter Brownies
November 15th, 2008 @ 9:13 pm | Comments
Filed Under: nablopomo, photos, recipes
This is yet another recipe photo session I did back in September that I couldn’t get to while my laptop was out of commission. I made these brownies for my Pampered Chef party, late at night, while I had a pretty raging case of PMS. My advice? NEVER make chocolate peanut butter brownies late at night while you have PMS. It was incredibly tempting to just eat the entire pan before I went to bed.
This is a recipe I got from an old co-worker, back when I worked at Pitt. He brought these in one day and I demanded he share the recipe. They are so good. And so very very bad for you. Which makes them even better.
The ingredients are pretty straight-forward: flour, butter, eggs, salt, vanilla. Oh, and an entire can/bottle of Hershey’s syrup. And peanut butter mixed with melted butter. And chocolate squares with melted butter. Like I said: kinda bad for you.
Start with the flour. I used 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup of white flour. Sift that with the salt.
What a nice little pile that makes!
In a bowl, combine the butter, sugar, and eggs.
Beat it to a pulp- I mean, beat it until it’s ‘light and fluffy’.
Add the flour/salt mixture and mix it. Wow, I’m descriptive, aren’t I?
Add the Hershey’s syrup. This time around, I use a bottle instead of a can. To be completely honest, I have no clue if they are the same thing or not. But my grocery store just went through a complete rearranging of all their aisles and I cannot find ANYTHING anymore. I have no idea where they put the cans of syrup, they weren’t with the baking stuff which is where they used to be. So I just grabbed a bottle that was by the ice cream toppings. It turned out just fine!
And since I was squirting it in, it made a really cool, Jackson Pollock-like pattern in the batter. I am sooo artistic.
Mix the chocolate in until there are no more white/yellow streaks from the batter.
Pour into a greased 9×13 pan.
Try to resist sticking your face in it. Seriously- I DARE YOU.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until you can dip a toothpick into the middle and it comes out clean. You can see my little toothpick marks right there.
Let it cool for a bit. Once it’s cool to the touch, mix the peanut butter (I use a little bit of chunky peanut butter with mostly smooth peanut butter) with 1 1/2 tablespoons of melted butter. YES, I SAID MELTED BUTTER.
Spread this peanut butter/butter mixture over the top of the entire thing.
ooooh my.
Melt the semisweet squares with the remaining tablespoon of butter in the microwave.
If you have a fancy pastry bag or icing gun, you can use that for this next step. I however did not have one of those at the time (but I will soon- I just ordered a decorating thingie from Pampered Chef!) so I used a plastic bag. Fill the bag (or decorating gun) with the chocolate/butter mixture.
Now you’re going to draw lines with the chocolate across the surface of the peanut butter. The plastic bag does the trick, though I’m horribly clumsy with it and have only been able to get it to work well once. Unfortunately, that one time was not when I was taking pictures of my masterpiece.
Yeah. Well. Whatever. It doesn’t really matter, because next you’re going to drag a knife through each chocolate stripe to create a nifty little pattern.
So really, you can hardly tell that I screwed the chocolate stripes up! See? (Ignore that bottom left edge. heh.)
Also, I have a confession: I may have squirted the leftover chocolate/butter mixture that was in the bag DIRECTLY INTO MY MOUTH. AND I DIDN’T REGRET IT. Maybe I did that. You’ll never know for sure, now will you?
Cut these into squares. I usually keep them pretty small- maybe between 1-2 inches each- because these are VERY rich. And that way, you can have two! Or three! Because they’re little!
And by all means, leave the dishes in the sink till morning.
Peanut Butter Brownies
1 cup flour (sifted)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 can (16 oz) Hershey’s Syrup
For topping:
1 1/4 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky, or a little bit of both)
1 1/2 tbsp butter, melted
2 squares semisweet chocolate
1 tbsp butterPreparation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour and salt onto waxed paper. Beat butter, sugar and eggs in large bowl until light and fluffy; stir in vanilla. Stir in flour and salt until well-blended. Stir in chocolate syrup until no streaks of white remain. Pour mixture into 9×13 greased pan. Bake 25 minutes. Cool completely. Mix peanut butter with 1 tbsp melted butter; spread evenly over top of brownies. Melt chocolate with remaining butter. Drizzle across peanut butter in lines; draw a toothpick across the lines. Let chocolate set before cutting into squares.
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November 15th, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
I am so sad that I missed out on these at your Pampered Chef party!! I was too busy indulging in the chicken/tortillas we made!!!
Also, I know what store you are talking about and I hate going there because my shopping takes twice as long since I don’t know where anything is anymore!!!
These look so good. Maybe I’ll make them for the holiday season!
November 15th, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
Holy cow!
What? They’re healthy. You used whole wheat flour! :)
Jaimes last blog post: All I want for Christmas
November 15th, 2008 @ 9:43 pm
@Jaime: LOL yeah! Totally! And there’s EGGS in them. Eggs are REALLY good for you.
November 15th, 2008 @ 9:43 pm
These look really good… too bad I’m allergic to peanuts. :( Oh well, I guess it saves me some extra calories!
Melissas last blog post: mail call 2008!
November 15th, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
yes, please. I’ll take 4!
Janes last blog post: Celebrating 35
November 15th, 2008 @ 10:49 pm
@Melissa: aw I know :( I totally thought of you when I was posting this. What a bummer!
November 15th, 2008 @ 11:43 pm
I am not a fan of chocolate mixed with peanut butter, but I’ll have to give it a try. :)
November 16th, 2008 @ 12:57 am
YUM!
I baked CC cookies with Heidi tonight.. must have been a baking day.. :)
Crap your camera takes sweet pics. What kind is it?
November 16th, 2008 @ 3:36 am
Wow, looking good…. (minus the Peanut Butter. HATE Peanut Butter ;)).
P.S. Nice new layout! :)
sans last blog post: Another crush
November 16th, 2008 @ 9:28 am
@Steph: It’s just a little point-and-shoot: a Canon Powershot SD850 IS. It does take pretty decent pictures though!
November 16th, 2008 @ 11:56 am
Okay, so the Hershey’s sundae syrup? I had PMS last week and may have squirted the bottle directly into my mouth…many times. Just as long as we are confessing here.
I am having a Steeler’s get-together today and if I had enough time, I so would have made these! DARN IT!
November 16th, 2008 @ 1:07 pm
You are so on your way to becoming the next Pioneer Woman Cooks! I swear, in the middle of the recipe I had to look up at the address field to make sure where I was. Hmm, I thought so. Wow!
Rachies last blog post: Me, in one word.
November 16th, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
Love it!
Afraid they might be too sweet for me, though. I get sweeted-out really easily.
Lauras last blog post: random things my kid is doing
November 16th, 2008 @ 2:15 pm
@Laura: They’re actually not so much sweet as they are ‘rich’- to me, there’s a difference, I think. I’m not a big fan of super-sweet things (like sugary cookies with icing) I think the peanut butter counteracts the sweetness- possibly because I use Simply Jif, which doesn’t have as much sugar as regular peanut butter.
November 16th, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
Excuse me while I wipe up the drool from my keyboard.
Few things rival peanut butter and chocolate together. Mmmm.
Not sure if I hate you or love you for putting that recipe in front of me. :-D
JenniferCs last blog post: Wordless Wednesday: Me and my shadow
November 16th, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
I’m very, very excited to try and make these. I love brownies and peanut butter.
Srsly, is there a better match?
Woys last blog post: So Much for That…
November 16th, 2008 @ 7:22 pm
@Woy: Honestly? I don’t think there is! :) Enjoy!
November 16th, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
we had chicken taco soup for dinner tonight! so yummy. jackson has been giving us a hard time at mealtime - not tonight. and zane had 2 bowls - baby bowls - but still! thanks. more recipes, please!
November 16th, 2008 @ 10:59 pm
@Athena: great! Glad it was such a hit :)
November 17th, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
Oh, YUM! That looks unbelievably good!
Um, I totally want to make that now. I have all of the ingredients except the chocolate stuff and kind of want to go buy it. Hey! I’m going to Target! I bet they carry it. And now to gain back any weight I’ve lost over the past weeks… ;)
You should bring that to the cookie swap.
November 17th, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
@Allison: Hey no problem, I’m here to help ;)
Nope, I’m bringing snickerdoodles to the cookie swap!
November 18th, 2008 @ 7:20 pm
I must remember to make these around the holidays. I normally don’t have a sweet tooth, but HELLO, YUMMY! :)
Thanks for sharing!
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