Jill's Pizza Party offered a perfect excuse to take out my butter, sugar, and hand mixer, and bake a batch of brownies. I love the flexible nature of brownies. I can make them cakey or fudgy, plain, with chocolate chips, with Bailey's or with pretzels (though I still haven't perfected that one). Last night, with chocolate and peanut butter chip as well as peanut butter in my pantry, I set to work on creating peanut butter swirl brownies.
Hatched from the same blend of butter, brown and white sugar, eggs, and a touch of milk, I divided the batter between two bowls. To the first bowl I mixed in cocoa powder, chocolate chips, and mini m&ms (sensing a shortage of Ghiradelli 60% cocoa chocolate chips, I purchased a few emergency rolls of minis). To the second bowl I beat in some peanut butter (the recipe asked for smooth, but I used the superior Trader Joe's Natural Crunchy Salted Peanut Butter) and folded in peanut butter chips. Then I checker boarded an 8" pan (no 9" in my artillery) with the two mixtures, swirled them together with a knife, and slide them into my oven for a 30 minute tan at 350.
As much as I love making brownies, I can usually resist the urge to eat them. I find them overly dense and fudgy many times, and I'm not a raging chocoholic. However, as I stirred the peanut butter portion of the batter, smelled it in all its delicious glory, and then saw its chocolate twin next door, I realized that I was falling for the brownies. So, as soon as I tucked the pan into the oven, I married up my peanut butter mix spoon with the cocoa batter and licked the spoon (and the bowls and beaters). Sooo good and especially good at a quarter to eleven o'clock at night
This morning, after cutting the brownies into squares/rectangles, I taste tested a stray piece and again marvelled at the genius of the chocolate peanut butter combination. Some say these bars are simply blondies in disguise. All I have to say is that they are brownies even the little Rhino couldn't resist. Impressive.
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