It’s amazing to me, and crushing to Alex, that in the year that I have posted to this site I have not produced a single peanut butter recipe. How could this be? I love peanut butter. I have waxed poetic about the peanut butter cookies from Billy’s Bakery more than once. Reeses Peanut Butter Cups are the only widely-distributed candy I consider ‘worth it.’ I am weak in the knees in the face of it, to the point that I actually make an effort to not buy any. It’s just not safe around me. Armed with a spoon and the door to the fridge swung open, it gets ugly. There is safety in distance.
And yet. I have such a soft spot for the Letters section of Gourmet Magazine, and in this month’s a reader requests the peanut butter brownie recipe from one Butterwood Desserts in West Falls, New York. Trying to fight off the craving, I immediately picked it apart. First of all, most peanut butter cakes and such are lackluster; the flavor is always too subtle for me and I question why we need to add flour, butter and sugar to something so perfect unadorned on a spoon. Second, when it comes to frosting brownies, I am staunchly “anti.” A great brownie shouldn’t need an extra slick of chocolate on top to make it work, and too often these frostings are cloyingly sweet and used to hide a quite average brownie underneath. My brownie recipes require no such pimping out.
But there I was, just a couple hours later, declaring that this brownie had both a pronounced peanut butter flavor and that the ganache coating made the whole thing disarmingly yummy, and since then, nearly every event of the weekend has been rewarded with one, from applaud-able “two hour walk in Prospect Park” to the much-less-so “I’m hungry and not in the mood to make dinner.” Before things got any uglier, I tried to fob them off on not one but two pregnant friends, but alas, no dice. What is wrong with this world when one cannot count on third-trimester women to eat chocolate and peanut butter together! for you?
A cruel one, it seems; that demands sit-ups, many of them. I hope you’re happy now.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject, a question: What is the one food that you simply cannot be trusted around? I think we already know mine.
One year ago: Flower Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Peanut Butter Brownies
Adapted from Butterwood Desserts, West Falls, New York via Gourmet, October 2007
Makes 32 brownies, more or less, depending on how you cut them
These “brownies” are more blondie than cakey, with an excellent peanut butter-chocolate contrasts and fantastic edges, for those of you into that sort of thing. Have a glass of milk handy.
For brownies
2 sticks (1/2 pound or 225 grams) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups (350 grams) sugar
1 cup (255 grams) creamy peanut butter
2 large eggs plus 1 large yolk
2 teaspoons (10 ml) pure vanilla extract
2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups (9 ounces or 255 grams) semisweet chocolate chips **
1/2 teaspoon table salt, see note**
For ganache
1 1/2 cups (9 ounces or 255 grams) semisweet chocolate chips**
1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy cream
1 tablespoon (15 grams) unsalted butter, softened
Make brownies: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F with rack in middle. Butter a 13- by 9- by 2-inch baking pan, then line bottom of pan with parchment paper and butter parchment.
Beat together butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until mixture is light and fluffy, then add peanut butter and beat until incorporated. Beat in whole eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla. Reduce mixer sped to low, then mix in flour until just combined.
Mix in chocolate chips (1 1/2 cups) then spread batter in baking pan, smoothing top. (It will be thick, almost like cookie batter.)
Bake until brownies are deep golden, puffed on top and a wooden pick inserted in center come out with some crumbs adhering, 40 to 45 minutes.
Cool completely in pan on a rack, about 1 1/2 hours.
Make ganache: Put chocolate chips (1 1/2 cups) in a heatproof bowl.
Bring cream to a boil in a small saucepan, then pour over chocolate chips and let mixture stand for one minute.
Gently whisk in butter until it is incorporated, chocolate is melted, and a smooth mixture forms.
Spread ganache on cooled brownies and let stand until set, about 15 minutes.
Brownies keep in one layer in an airtight container three days, and we hope much longer if hidden waaay in the back of the freezer.
* I swapped bittersweet chips for the semisweet by accident, but really liked that bitter, grown-up kick.
** Our store only sells some all natural hipppy-dippy peanut butter. It worked fine but I couldn’t help but feel this recipe needed a bit of salt. It could be that, uh, it needs some salt, or that traditional peanut butter (IstillheartyouSkippy!) has more salt in it. I’d suggest you try the dough/batter (because you’re going to anyway) before you bake it and judge for yourself whether it needs a little more flavor balance.
BACON!!!! A plate full of golden strips and I’m a gonner. I don’t even have to have anything for the bacon to go on. One by one, baby.
These pictures are BEYOND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OK my food obsession has got to C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E CAKE WITH BUTTERCREAM FROSTING! Let me just pull up a chair to the cake plate and DIG IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
coffee ice cream.
~* swoon*~
Custard. Everytime my mom would make it when I was a kid and it would be cooling on the table outside, I would walk by on purpose as much as I could and dunk a finger in.
Pizza — wood-fired, especially! My number one craving, hands-down.
Broccoli casserole. The kind with mayonaise and lots of cheese, cracker crumbs on top. It’s my number one comfort food. Thank goodness it takes actual work to make, otherwise I’d always have some in the fridge.
Sound fabulous but I’m gluten intolerant and new to baking gluten free. Do you have suggestions for adapting this recipe? Thanks!
That’s insane that you posted this today on a very old recipe. I was literally going to ask the same thing. I’m going to try with just 1:1 all purpose flour and report back!
mmmm peanut butter brownies with chocolate…oh man…why? WHY? I have cinnamon sugar biscuits in the oven and you’re showing me these glorious goodies. NOT FAIR. There should be a rule about parading one sweet treat around when there’s already one on the way or in the mouth. These look goooooooooood. And it’s ice cream for me..and coffee…or coffee ice cream….OR better yet coffee AND ice cream MmmmmMMmmmmmMmmmmm Some times I just open the freezer door and spend some quality time amongst the frozen peas. Me and my ice cream..good times. Thanks for the recipe. I am so gonna try them!
There must have been something in the air this weekend. I made peanut butter and chocolate bars, so very close to tasting like Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (a weakness of mine too)…and alarmingly easy…hips beware!
*First time commenter…love your blog…and your photography leaves me hungry at my desk!
OMG are those pictures are wicked! I sit here looking here at the recipe making sure I have everything on hand to make them, tomorrow!
And my vice is good bread, almost any kind of rustic style or pastry, you name it. Which is dangerous. Because what house doesnt have bread at all times?? Luckily the kids love plain old white, which I am not a HUGE fan of. You know what I mean. I like bread with some depth.
i’m with you on the peanut butter. and i typically don’t try pb recipes either, but as part of my new year’s resolution, i’m making a cake every month this year (how’s that for making a resolution you can keep and enjoy? it kinda makes you popular as well) and in april i happened upon this recipe for peanut butter cake: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/231746 my taste testers say its their favorite so far. maybe 2008 needs to be my year for brownies…
Ditto on the peanut butter. I sent Brad to the store tonight knowing that we are completely OUT of peanut butter, but I didn’t tell him to buy any because, well, I’ll eat it. All of it. And that just will not do.
Of course now you’ve RELALY gone and done it! Yum.
My mom’s cheesecake makes New York Cheesecake (no offense) seem deflated and heavy on your tongue… Her cheesecake can float angels. **swoon**
Cheesecake! Always room for another peanut butter/chocolate brownie, too.
Peanut butter – straight out of the jar! Sigh – my perfect comfort food!
Crepes. My dad’s crepes. The only times I’ve out eaten my ravenous boyfriend have been eating crepes at my parents’ house. I am a sucker for crepes filled with sugar and lemon juice or homemade strawberry freezer jam.
We’ve just moved to Ann Arbor, and the first restaurant we visited had an amazing white chocolate mousse filled crepe. Dangerous indeed.
Honestly? Corn. Completely bizarre, but I once ate so much corn as a kid that I gave myself stomach cramps such that I believed death was imminent.
are you ready for it…? my mom’s stewed shitake mushrooms :) and with good ol’ canadian maple syrup coming in for a close second.
kinda freaky, deb… it was like you were channeling me or something, cause i was just looking for a pb brownie recipe!! you rock !! awesome pics btw :)
Um, probably weird, but marshmallow fluff. I cannot have a jar of it in the house without grabbing a spoon and plopping right down in the middle of the kitchen floor to eat it. Although fluffer nutter sandwiches tie my craving oh so nicely back to peanut butter, eh?
WOMAN, I think you’re trying to kill me and my computer. I really wish they would invent Deb-O’vision, so I can simply reach into my monitor and pull out your completed creation. Do you know how much drool is on my keyboard right now? You’re lucky I have a spare so I can type out this comment.
I think you totally ship me your leftovers, since we are celebrating my official start back to the workforce. What do you say?
Dark chocolate (Exhibit A: Demolished Ritter Sport on my desk). Watermelon. And I don’t know the name for them in English, but this kind of Chinese fruit roll-up made from hawthorn. Mmmmmm.
Well, now that you have pb in the house (I, like you, have to keep my distance for obvious midnight pantry-raid reasons), you know you’re going to have to make peanut butter pie, right?
Oh, thank you for this recipe! I will bookmark this for future use for sure. PB and chocolate are one of my favourites. In fact, I confess that I have on occasion sat down in the evening to snack upon peanut butter out of the jar with a side of mini marshmallows and chocolate chips. (dark hershey kisses are also good.) yum.
PEANUT BUTTER. Like you, I can’t even have it in the house. I eat it out of the jar with a spoon. It’s devilish I tell you. And cereal. I can’t just have one bowl. I have to have 4.
Bacon. Chocolate. Is there any recipe that CAN’T be improved by either adding, or doubling, the chocolate or the bacon?
Hi Deb, great to see you again at the City Bakery. Gah, stop it with these decadent recipes! I can’t be trusted with a bar of dark chocolate, fresh crusty bread or Nutella.
Dark chocolate. It is winning the war at this very moment.
This recipe looks awesome, my mom used to make my favorite peanut butter blossoms when I was little…peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses. This looks like it could be my adult favorite!
Ice cream. I cannot be left with it unsupervised. If I know there’s a pint in my freezer, I have to have it. All of it. NOW! And if there are two pints of different flavors, I could probably polish both of those off, too.
Ditto on the Nutella. Damn your evil genius, Nestle!
Oooh, on my trip back from VA last week, I earmarked that very recipe. I was hungry, tired and totally delirious from not sleeping all night, but as soon as I saw that recipe, I knew it was perfection embodied! Yours looks amazing! And how sad am I to have missed David’s book signing? I’ve been boring and droll working round the clock.
As for things that I cannot/should not be around are peanutbutter/chocolate ANYTHING, Billy’s cupcakes, blood orange sorbet from Ciao Bella, olive tapenade, maple syrup and chocolate caramels from Landmarc.
I am a savory girl. I can’t be trusted with any sort of chip/cracker and any mayo/sour cream/cream cheese based dip.
I suffered an unfortunate overdose on peanut butter as a child, so you’re welcome to my share of that (the Reeses, we split). However, I will fight you for any of the following: potato chips, french fries, ice cream (even flavors I’m not crazy about), and freshly baked bread or cookies. But not peanut butter cookies, those are all yours:-)
We would so love these. Peanut butter and chocolate are a great combination of which I’ve yet to tire. I really like the ganache layer. Coincidentally, I just made my first-ever chocolate ganache last night for a peanut butter tart.
butter, and cheese. either one of these added to ANYTHING automatically elevates it to irresistable.
Any sort of cheesy appetizer-ish food will be a cleared dish in my house. If I could only eat appetizers (and desserts!), I would be a happy lady.
I have three foods that I absolutely, positively cannot be trusted around. Number one is peanut butter. I’ve been known to polish off an entire jar in a day by dipping in with my spoon from time to time. Number two are ginger snaps. I have a real thing for Nabisco Ginger Snaps with skim milk. I just can’t stop! Number three is good cheese, especially blue. I can’t keep them in my fridge after a party, I just eat and eat. Luckily I love fruit and veggies too, that’s what keeps me from weighing ten tons. That, and I just don’t keep those foods in the house very often.
Brownies, double-chocolate cookies, Chex mix. Luckily being out of the country keeps me at a reasonable distance from the Chex mix!
Fresh pineapple, warm brownies. Heck, any warm baked good. Oh, here in Scotland they sell “caramel shortcake” which is a layer of super-buttery shortbread, with a layer of caramel, topped with a layer of chocolate. Any excuse is good enough for some of that.
And when I was pregnant, I couldn’t have peanut butter because with my family history of food allergies, it made it likely that my son would be allergic to peanuts. So, as long as I’m pregnant or breastfeeding, I can’t have it. Sigh. I missed (and miss!) pb more than alcohol, caffeine, or soft cheese.
I’m also a salt fiend, but am not much of a snacker/midnight raider –so the food that I can’t be trusted around can be grouped under the general category of leftovers. Whenever it’s time to scrape any remainders of a tasty dish into tupperware, somehow a good portion gets added to my already full stomach.
anything pickled. seriously. I’d probably even eat pickled meat. well, maybe not… but peanut butter? Totally safe around me. I like peanuts, hate peanut butter. Weird, right?
I can’t believe that you couldn’t get two pregnant women to scarf those down!
Personally, I love peanut butter with a piece of high-quality dark chocolate, but I don’t like Reese’s because I taste all sorts of other things in there that take away from the purity of the peanut butter with the chocolate (I’m such a snob). Foods that are hard for me to resist: bread products, chocolate, dairy products (cheese in particular), it’s a battle I just can’t win…
Funnily enough, peanut butter. I will just eat it off of a spoon. Followed closely by Nutella and anything pickled. One of the things I like about living in the midwest, as opposed to the east coast, is that they pickle EVERYTHING out here. Oh, also, my husband’s fresh-made honey oat bread and any kind of ice cream.
Ok, basically, I am saying that I cannot be trusted around ANY food.
Cheese.
I HAVE to make these for my husband, his weakness is peanut butter also. :)
I love me some peanut butter too! Have you tried the peanut butter filled hershey’s kisses? Very delicious.
I’m not so bad about my cravings, I have just a few:
brownies with chewy edges; chocolate pudding, especially the recipe recently posted on my blog; bacon; peanut butter; toast with peanut butter and bacon; Scotchies (think rice krispy bars, really really chewy topped with peanut butter and chocolate)
ok, so maybe a few more than a few
I can’t be trusted around chips and salsa, particularly creamy avocado and tomatillo salsa. I could eat that stuff by the gallons.
Clam dip, preferably with Cape Cod chips. And hummus. Must go shopping…
Any form of cake. Particularly if iced.
Good jam. I just worked my way through an entire jar of rhubarb jam, the majority of which was eaten as you would your peanut butter, except I didn’t even bother with a spoon, just a finger into the jar for rhubarby goodness.
Good pate on lavosh crackers.
Any form of potato chip, but Plain Thins are my favourite. I’m a simple gal.
And I make these cinnamon buns which I don’t make because of how many I can consume in one sitting.
Lemon delicious pudding.
Potato dauphinois.
And so on and so forth.
Donuts! Those darn things get me everytime! And Chocolate can’t live without chocolate!!
Those. Look. AMAZING. Just wondering, though – can you skip the parchment paper step and just spray the pan?
Nutella is my weakness, too. I am not allowed to have it near me. I lived in Paris for a year and it really tested the limits of my self-control – or lack thereof. Back when I thought I could still handle it, I bought a huge jar (not even sure they sell that size here) and my roommate and I polished it off in three days. That is not an exaggeration. So I kept the empty jar for coins as a memory of my gluttony and allowed myself Nutella ONLY in measured doses slathered on by street-crepe vendors.
Later in the year, roommate’s boyfriend bought some Nutella to make crepes with at home. I yelled at him. And then sneaked into the kitchen in the early morning with a spoon and ate it out of the jar EVEN THOUGH IT WASN’T MINE.
I am telling you, Nutella makes people do crazy things.
My other less serious weakness is Ben&Jerry’s peanut butter cup ice cream… so I think these brownies will do quite nicely.
st. andre cheese. i am only allowed to buy it once every other week because it doesn’t last for more than an hour after i get home. i have been known to slap hands if they inch towards my cheese.
and for the nutella lovers out there, there is an ice cream parlor here in philly that has nutella as an option for an add-in. a cup of vanilla fro-yo with nutella swirled in? pretty much a cup of awesome.
oh, please would you just stop it now. One more post like this and I may well just eat my darn computer and we know how expensive it gets to keep having to replace them.
Love it. Perfect for today’s rainy, hazy Autumness.
Oh.God. Foods Sarah cannot be trusted around. This could become an essay, I warn you.
Along with Stacy, I am also a sour cream/mayo/cheese based dip fiend. I can even eat with a spoon. Warm, soft layer cake with icing. Pickled things (currently “Ricks Picks” beets). CHEESE (right now I am ADDICTED to Pierre Robert. It will be gone within hours of getting home. It is great with grapes). Ice cream (esp Dulce de Leche and Ciao Bella Blackberry Cab sorbet). Amazing, bacon and brown sugar laced homemade baked beans. Nutella on baguette. And, my most guilty of pleasures……Cool Whip (snicker, snicker). I can polish off a tub with gusto. I mean, really, I love food. Nothing is safe.
I really need your moms recipe, please.
Cheese. I only buy reduced fat wrapped gross slices to keep in the house for desperation sandwiches. No real delicious super sharp cheddar, no spicy jalapeno jack….no brie…sigh. I become posessed and cannot stop. I love cheese.
Peanut Butter and chocolate is one of my all time favorite food combos and this recipe looks DIVINE!
However, the one thing I cannot be trusted around is a Peanut Buster Parfait from Dairy Queen. Cold and hot, sweet and salty, smooth and crunchy. Pure bliss!
Nutella, meatloaf, and dried mango. And pretty much any baked goods that are sitting on my kitchen table in their little pans or dishes with a knife conveniently stowed inside. That knife living in the brownie pan is the kiss of death.
I am not pregnant, but I’ll be your friend if it means brownies. Peanut butter brownies. I am going to start drooling on the keyboard if I look at those pictures much longer. Actually, I’m so excited I’m missing letters as I type. And now? I go eat chicken parm leftovers and I’m going to cry over the fact that I don’t have any brownies.
For me? Baked goods don’t last in my house. Ever. It’s actually really bad (in a good, sweet way).
Hello, Men?? Men?? You read this site too, I know you do. Don’t you have any cravings? Any foods you can’t be trusted around? I know my boyfriend can’t be left alone with cookies. Any kind of cookie. Huge, mouthfuls of cookie. He looovveesss them.
Me? I am a savory girl too. Chips & Salsa. OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU CHIPS & SALSA!!! I could (and have) eaten them in the morning for breakfast, I can eat them at noon, at 5pm, at 8pm, and you better believe I can eat them in the middle of the night. Garden of Eatin’ Blue corn chips and HOT, fresh Salsa, OH MY!
Deb: every recipe of yours I try, I make again and again. Thanks!!
My goodness, YUM! They look deadly! I love PB. I was however, turned from the smell for some time- as the spouse used it for the doggie treats and every time I opened my freeze I would get the wiff of PB from the frozen bones. But, nonetheless, this recipe looks great. I love the old fashion recipe called ‘Mice’…the rice krispies and PB mixed together…shaped in little oval bodies..and dipped in chocolate! Yum! I had a confession session with myself today on my blog. Talked about HOW many cookies I used to eat at the bakery I used to work at. I don’t think I would be able to last in your kitchen!
Thanks!
Second, when it comes to frosting brownies, I am staunchly “anti.†A great brownie shouldn’t need an extra slick of chocolate on top to make it work, and too often these frostings are cloyingly sweet and used to hide a quite average brownie underneath.
THANK YOU. Thankyouthankyouthankyou. This needed to be said, because whenever my friends make brownies they slop too-sweet frosting on top, and then mock me for scraping it off. The point of brownies is to be rich and chocolatey already; you shouldn’t need a layer of frosting on top!
As for the food I can’t be trusted around, I hate to be a copycat, but mine is also Reese’s PB Cups, but only the mini-cups. Stick a bag of those in the freezer and I will stop to eat three every time I walk through the kitchen!
These look like perfection. The pb/chocolate combo is one of my food weaknesses, which also include: cheese, cheese and more cheese; roasted cauliflower (it’s true, I’m addicted); and salt-and-pepper kettle potato chips. Oh, and avocados.
1. Cheez-Its
2. Fudge (will keep skimming very thin slices off the block, then have to take more so it’s an even square, then more skimming, then more evening…)
3. Box of See’s Candies (I’ll eat a box of Nuts and Chews if it’s in front of me, but I’d rather have a hand-picked box of Butterscotch Squares, Rasperry Creams, Tipperaries and Vanilla Caramels! West coast girls, who’s with me?)
4. Black Pepper Jack Doritos (I have a horrible feeling these are a limited edition and I will spend my retirement in mourning for them)
The Boo has requested peanut butter brownies tonight. Thanks, Deb.
OMG, Can I come over and get one of those? Like right after work?
1. French fries (nuff said)
2. Cheese (very dangerous since I am always stocked.)
3. Pita Chips (also dangerous since work stocks them in the snack area for free!)
Can you tell I am a salty person?
I made these too for a housewarming party over the weekend–YUM. Chocolate and Peanute butter really is the best. Food I can’t resist: Yellow Cake from a mix with chocolate icing. I have had to throw a few down the trash chute to keep myself from eating a whole cake in one sitting (or actually standing, as this is usually the type of thing you eat standing over the counter when no one is looking).
For all of you who love nutella and chocolate (like me) you should really try to find some Kinder Bueno. It’s a european candy that’s good european milk chocolate filled with nutella. SOOO GOOD! Everytime I know someone who is going to europe I ask them to get me some, but sometimes I can find it in Italian grocery stores here.
I’m just gonna go with carbs. Good bread, good bagels, pie, cake, brownies, cookies (especially the korova cookies. I don’t even make them unless I have somewhere to take them), pasta, potatoes, real pizza (not chain stuff).
I tend to go in cycles,just finished a pasta and brownie cycle, and right now I am on cake, but heading toward pizza.
And sadly I too cannot be trusted with peanut butter cups. And those “normal” sized packages with the two cups? C’mon, that is NOT a serving size. I also prefer them straight from the freezer (which means hiding them in the freezer doesn’t work) am I the only one that likes them frozen?
OH! I have an excuse to make these! My mother in-law’s birthday is next week and she loves peanut butter too! I really thought I had to force myself not to make them since we are trying to loose weight, but if it is a self-less deed, then I can totally do it!
I can’t be trusted around much: pie, Mcvittie’s digestives, Rown Tree fruit pastilles, Jelly Bellys, dried mango (I’m with lisa on that), and summer cherry tomatoes all take their lives into their hands when they enter my house. But if it was just one thing, it would have to be:
white cheddar popcorn. Oh, and pita chips – two things.
Wow, that looks sooo good! I’m a peanut butter nut, so I’m gonna have to try out that recipe! Thanks for sharing.
2 words: thin mints
those darned girl scouts come around every january peddling their crack (i mean, cookies) and i cannot resist…sigh
Hmmm….that last photo shows an ALMOST empty dish of these beauties. I wonder where they all went? hee hee
I had bookmarked that recipe in Gourmet and planned on making it this weekend. Yummy sounding.
As for food that I can’t be trusted around? Is salt a food, cuz I don’t even taste, I just add salt…I know, me bad. Then chips, then bacon (and aren’t these salty? Sigh).
For me, resistance is futile with both York peppermint patties and those lil goldfish crackers. I cannot have either in the house.
These peanutty brownie things are making me drool on my keyboard! This is not helping the diet at all. And have you ever noticed that boys and dogs love peanut butter anything? – with this knowledge I have no idea why we women aren’t running the world yet….
Nutella! I finished two jars in two weeks……all by myself!!!
Thanks for this recipe smitten! After reading your post yesterday, I made it last night for a work morning tea – it was a huge hit! I used dark chocolate bits for the batter and ganache, however, I’m looking forward to trying it with milk chocolate too!
As for a food that mysteriously disappears when I am in the vicinity, it’s just chocolate, pure and simple :)
CHEESE…the more sharp the cheddar, the better, but I will demolish any cheese in the house. That and those generic spicy California rolls. And maple candy. But God help me, not all three at once.
Oh, god, chocolate. All of it, in any form. David Lebovitz’s idiot cake? I have to make it for lots of friends, because it can NOT sit around my house. I also have a major weakness for cheese. All cheese.
…and a good chocolate chip cookie.
Peanut butter here, too. It’s what I crave when I need comforting… it’s wonderful on its own, but also on EVERYTHING. I love peanut butter on carrots and celery, with apples and bananas, on ice cream, in coffee, in the peanut sauce form (like with satay), on potato chips and even, as a condiment to sandwiches and burgers… there’s a diner in West Lafayette, IN that has a burger on its menu called the “Duane Purvis All-American” which is a burger slathered with peanut butter… it’s incredible.
In short, if I had to survive with only one condiment/sauce for the rest of my life, it would be peanut butter, no questions asked.
Great recipes! Wonderful blog! So glad I stumbled on your post by accident. Thanks for sharing all your great ideas……….Di
Those brownies look amazing. I’m drooling over here. It’s pretty difficult to find really good chocolate chips here in France. Or to find them at all.
When visitors bring us See’s chocolates, my husband has to push me out of the way and grab one or they’re gone in seconds…
pretzel croissants
cheap delivery pizza and cheesecake!
Ever since I found the Cheddar Jalapeno Cornbread recipe on your site I cannot be trusted around it when I make it. It does not take long for the pan to turn up empty. Other than that, I will eat oatmeal raisin cookies like it’s my job.
I really need your moms recipe, please.
Crackers – I cannot even buy them any more, because I simply cannot control myself if a box is open around me. So bad.
This recipe, however, looks so, so good. Thanks!! I needed a recipe for Thanksgiving dessert this weekend.
So I’m from Ohio…but do people in other states have Buckeyes? They are basically peanut butter balls coated in ganache. Are they called something else? Anyway…good stuff for those peanut butter lovers out there.
Re: Buckeyes–I once saw a Food Network special on buckeyes and drooled the whole time.
Re: Thin mints– You should check out Heidi’s recipe! I have been meaning to forever.
Re: Pretzel croissants–David, you are a pastry chef. Surely you can work this recipe out and report back to us, and by us, I mean me? What did we guess? Bread flour, malt syrup, a nice brushing of salt… easy-peasy!
Re: York peppermint patties–I think I owe you guys my grandmother’s creme de menthe brownie recipe, huh?
Also: what is this about frozen peanut butter cups? Why have I not been told about this before? I am deprived!
Kettle cooked potato chips. Even better are the ones that have sweet potatoes and purple potatoes in them. Or even the veggie chips with big chunks of crispy fried carrots, green beans, yucca, etc. I could eat unlimited quantities, which is why I never buy them.
Talk O’ Texas Okra Pickles, aka, pickled okra. I know it sounds rather virtuous, but really, I CAN’T NOT EAT THE WHOLE JAR. In, like, 5 minutes. I go through those babies like an okra pickle-eating machine. And I am brand-loyal. Other kinds either are too mushy or taste weird.
My daddy’s chocolate chip walnut oatmeal molassas cookies. I try to replicate and can’t, so I just have to wait for care packages.
I can’t be trusted around maple sugar candies. Seriously, I think I almost went into a diabetic coma after eating a whole box in one day. ( and I’m not diabetic )
Deb- Here’s a fun peanut butter bar recipe for you that doesn’t have any flour…super peanutbuttery and super easy!
http://celiacchicks.typepad.com/celiacchicks/2007/01/peanut_butter_l.html
Oh, I totally second all of the maple candy mentions. And guess who is going upstate this weekend where it can be found everywhere? So excited.
The temptation would be my mother’s chocolate chip cookies. There’s nothing special about the recipe – it’s the Tollhouse recipe with Crisco substituting for butter. Mom would make them small and stick them in the freezer. About 6 frozen cookies and a cup of coffee is perfect for me, but left alone I would eat an entire batch.
anything involving puff pastry, anything!
just made these last night (hours after i read them – i have no self control). My husband and i LOVE them. Thanks for the suggestion!
these brownies are delicious…like melissa above me, i made them only hours after i read your recipe. i omitted the ganache topping (much to my dismay…i didn’t have heavy cream on hand), but found that they came out quite spectacularly even without it. i think they’d even be delicious without ANY chocolate at all!
food to not be trusted around (though perhaps not food): lattes. it’s gotten to the point where i don’t feel right if i don’t have one in the morning. i don’t know if it’s an addiction to the espresso/milk combination, or if it’s the fact of just having that 16 oz.-perfect-for-my-hand-size cup…..
I found your blog while looking for peanut butter based recipes and I just wanted to say:
I’m a pregnant woman in her third trimester (5 days past due actually) and if you had tried to pawn these off on me, I would have kissed your feet. I love peanut butter, but my love pales in comparison to my boyfriend’s near obsession with it. Especially when combined with chocolate.
Now that I think about it: What is it with men and a weakness for peanut butter/chocolate combo? My uncle is also obsessed, as is my dad. Lol!
I’ll definitely be trying this recipe A.S.A.P.
Deb, try the frozen cups immediately. You’ll never want to eat PB cups any other way. Which might be handy, if you’re trying to cut down.
“Hey, can you freeze those for me?”
“What? No.”
“Damn! I really wanted one, too…”
I also am anti-frosted brownie, but I have got to try these!
As for food weaknesses, pretty much anything sweet and baked is game. And cream cheese frosting. I think I could eat an entire batch of cream cheese frosting armed only with a spoon, and perhaps a few graham crackers.
Oh my lord…those look delicious! I remember when Starbucks had those peanut butter bars–I’d be in Heaven…(why the hell don’t they offer those anymore!?).
I’m booking marking this for a day I feel brave enough to try to bake…
Made these last night, sans frosting… delicious!!
Oh man, good question Deb!! Avocado makes everything better in my opinion, although it’s awesome alone too with a little garlic salt. Peanut butter on the spoon is also hard to beat – my ex-bf used to tell me that if he’d known about my p.b. obsession when we met, there never would’ve been a second date. Ha!
Planning to make the brownies this weekend, great post as always.
I think I´m gonna be completely unoriginal here and say brownies (the regular kind, I make them with cocoa and chocolate chunks, so there aren´t as heavy as other varieties), of course, I tried to delude myself and put most of them in the freezer, which doesn´t really help matters much as they can be defrosted in like 20 seconds and are even yummy frozen. And then some days I just need, more like crave like a maniac, something with dulce de leche… well, I guess that makes me less of a shame to my country´s food heritage (not loving beef and all puts me in a shameful place).
In fact, that reminds me of the chocolate brownies with dulce de leche David Lebovitz posted about a while back, need to get to those. But after I behave for a while since today it´s salads, homemade bread and humus, followed by a batch of this peanut butter brownies recipe since an American friend is coming over to cook with me and I´m sure she´ll love it in a quite nostalgic sort of way.
Sea Salt and Vinegar potato chips, white cheddar Cheetos, Rice Krispy Treats and anything in the bread category—I just can’t buy or bake a loaf and have it in the kitchen. I must keep all bread in the freezer or I turn into the marshmallow man. And Reeses are right up there with Kit Kats as my favorite candy. Why is it that the Europeans just don’t get the lovely combination of chocolate and peanut butter? I have read on many blogs that they find the combination very odd.
Ice cream…chocolate chips…those are my top 2 just can’t be trusted with food items.
Pregnant…turns out…fried chicken.
o.m.g. we must be soul mates! i eat peanut butter like nobody’s business! i especially love crunchy peanut butter by itself. guess what? i made peanut butter ice cream too ;)
One food? It used to be bacon but I no longer eat it. So, the question remains – one food?
If I have a sweet tooth, anything made from chocolate. If I’m feeling salty, my mum’s mac and cheese. Since, my mum lives on the east and I live on the west, pizza is my salty default. Here in Berkeley, I can choose thin crusts from Pie in the Sky*, Cheeseboard, Arinell’s, Lanesplitter, and Extreme Pizza**.
* My favorite
** My favorite delivery
just made these today – they are INSANE! i used jiff and it didn’t need any added salt.
i can’t be trusted around pancakes. i love them. love.
i made these over these weekend after much anticipation. now i am trying to offload them to as many people as possible. they are too heavy, tough (beyond just dense) and rich for me. i’m afraid i started thinking “no wonder americans are obese”. sorry, but these are too much for me.
Hey E…Try them again a day later. They were to much for me yesterday, 30 minutes after I frosted them, but now that they hd some time to set, they are yummy! (Still only need a small slice…)
I made these for my brother’s birthday this weekend. They were a big hit. Really big, judging by the size of of the brownies my aunts were parading around.
I cooked them for exactly 40 minutes and it seemed the teeniest, tiniest bit too long in the oven I was using (my cousin’s new house and she had yet to use the oven) and my ganache still had a few lumpy chocolate chips left it in it, but that only added to the charm. No one complained and many people complimented.
I love them. Thank you. I’ve devoured your site and bookmarked it. ^^
If there is anything to be smitten about, it’s those brownies! Mmmm!!
My husband swoons every time I make one of your recipes. He doesn’t even know that he’s secretly in love with you. I skipped the parchment paper and the salt, and I didn’t have any heavy cream so I just melted chocolate chips in a double boiler and swirled the chocolate on top. So very delicious. This might become my go-to dessert when asked to bring something to an event!
I forgot to answer the question! Any combination of bread and cheese is the end of me. Breadsticks and nacho cheese, baguette and goat cheese, pizza….I can’t resist.
For me the dish I absolutely will kill myself by overeating is my chicken mole (imagine the accent mark over the e). Not anywhere near a traditional version, it’s a variation my ex-wife’s grandmother taught me to get my kids to eat mole (mo-lay, not the burrowing varmint). Think extra mexican chocolate and thickened with peanut butter. Ah the spicy goodness and so good for my inner child if not my ever expanding waistline…lol.
Hmmm… your comment has me thinking about adding some chile (chipotle?) to these brownies…
Grand Marnier infused cake with buttercream frosting…….If you can find a great recipe and make it/photograph it/share the recipe, I KNOW your readers would appreciate it!
I used to work for a caterer-this was the wedding cake she served but wouldn’t share the recipe.
We used to purposefully cut a few “bad” mis-sized pieces (UNSERVABLE) and savor every morsel and crumb…
I cannot be trusted with Moon Pies or Little Debbie’s Oatmeal Creme Pies in the house. I’ll eat an entire box in a few days. I’m drooling over these photos and this recipe, and am sorely tempted to make it tonight. Drat that cold, cold butter in my ‘fridge! It’s holding me back from baking goodness! I’m going to try them soon, though.
Oh my goodness!
Chocolate and Peanut Butter is my ultimate flavour combination – and my downfall.
I just made these – and had a square while cooling – even without the ganache (and I left out the choco chips) these are DIVINE!
Thank you so much for sharing.
Dont’ get me wrong – there will be ganache – I’m just waiting for the blondie part to cool.
:-D
Oh my god these are crack. You have inspired me to keep CRACK in my own house!! I have begged my fiance not to leave me alone in the house.
The flavor on these is even better one or two days in, as is the texture – it seems to get more fudgy, less cakey, as time goes by. I am certainly glad I had a stand mixer though – my arm would have been achy after mixing these up, the batter’s so thick!
On second thought, perhaps I should have done that – burn off the calories before consuming the brownies! :)
THANK YOU for sharing this recipe!
Oh man! My husband will totally worship me if I make these! Thanks so much~ great site, amazing photography!
Made these yesterday… nobody can resist them!!! I omitted the salt, but used Jif PB and ohMYGOODNESS these are fantastic! The real thing turned out just as beautiful as the pictures. I cut mine really tiny so I can eat more of them and not feel quite as bad. Gave some to my neighbors and my sister, and she ate half of hers on the car ride home. These are quite difficult to have around and not want to devour them immediately.
I was directed to this site about two weeks ago and it is amazing. I decided to make these today and the brownies are cooling now; but I made the mistake of tasting the batter after adding the eggs and vanilla and again after adding the flour and I have to tell you, it was a real effort of will not to just eat the whole bowl. I wonder what the batter would be like folded into ice cream…
PS I omitted the salt because I was using evil capitalist peanut butter from Sainsbury’s, which is full of salt to keep the working man down.
PPS these are amazing. Really amazingly good.
Hrm.
I used 1 cup earth balance instead of two sticks butter, but other than that everything was the same. The batter was swimming in oil before I baked it, like I could and did drain it off… t hen I DID drain it off during the cooking process. It can’t just be the fact that I used earth butter over butter.
Nutella, definitely nutella. Arrgh, w.a.n.t some N.O.W!
Dried fruit, soft chocolate chip cookies, and brownies are things I cannot resist overindulging in. The dried fruit is especially evil, because I fool myself into thinking it’s healthy, but then I realize I’ve eaten the equivalent of about 4 times as much real fruit as I could eat in a day…
Made these last night for a Halloween gathering. They were so simple; I was able to throw it together after work. What a hit! Thank you kindly.
Mary, I used Smart Balance, a margarine,(U.S.) which I assume is similar to Earth Balance, and it doesn’t swim in oil. I think you must have got it too warm. My second batch is in the oven now, they really are good. I have been making only a half recipe. Thanks to Katy Newton for the link to this. rb
I made these last week, since I wasn’t able to stop thinking about them after I found the recipe. They are delicious; it reminds me of eating chocolate-peanut butter fudge at the beach. Mine didn’t come out quite as pretty, though– the ganache kind of separates from the brownie when I cut a small square. And I may have overbaked them a tad, since the edge pieces were quite crumbly, but the middle is still nice and chewy and rich :-).
I read that you didnt think that the subtle taste of Skippy peanut butter needed any other ingredients. I thought about a recipe from a jar of Kraft Peanut butter for cookies that had 3 ingredients! one cup PB, 1/2 cup sugar, and one egg all beaten together. I looked it up on their website. They said it could be used in a bar cookie recipe. I doubled the recipe and added the semisweet chocolate chips and baked it in an 8 x 8″ pyrex pan for around a 30 minutes at 325f. I used your ganache recipe to top it. They are heaven! like you said!
Well, there are many things that I tend to eat in excess, unfortunately, but the one that gets me every time, regardless of form, and despite sogginess or being undercooked: french fries with plenty of salt and ketchup. I’m a sucker. And mashed potatoes, too, but not quite as badly :).
This recipe was amazing. I brought some into work to reduce the amount that I needed to eat, and everybody thinks that I am a baking goddess. Thanks for the recipe!
The first time I baked these, they were heavenly. When I made them again, though, they ended up totally dried out and hard as rocks around the edges of the glass pan. I’m not sure what I did wrong. I used the same kind of pan and everything. It sounds like the same kind of problem Maasikas had. My ganache wouldn’t stick either.
Well, maybe a thrid time through will give me some kind of hint.
Awesome! These were a hit at the office. I offered half with ganache and half without. I must admit that the brand of chocolate chips makes a huge difference! Thanks for sharing!
These were so so delicious. I made my ganache with half and half (gasp) because I didn’t want to make a trip to the grocery store. Came out perfectly wonderful.
This is an amazing recipe!! I’m making it for my bf’s hockey teammm.. ill update their reaction to them tomorrow !!! thanks :0)
I made these around christmas time upon a friend’s request. On the initial day, i didnt enjoy them that much… but the day after, forget Reese’s peanut butter.. bring on Deb’s peanut butter brownies! They were heavenly with a mighty large cup of milk! Thanks Deb!
I made these amazing brownies for a superbowl party last weekend and was very happy with the results. The taste was amazing, and even though chocolate ganache can sometimes be overpowering, the topping was a perfect compliment to the peanut butter crust. My only revision for future bakings would be to cut the baking time. 40 minutes in my oven left the brownies a little dryer than I would have liked – especially around the edges. Thanks for the great recipe!
Absolutely deadly….These are the best looking peanut butter brownies I have ever seen. The texture looks exquisite. I will make these someday. Thank you!
– The Peanut Butter Boy
Thanks for the recipe. I made these last night and ate one for breakfast. Will definitely have to take a morning run, but ohhh was it worth it.
I just found your blog and want to thank you very much. I made these peanut butter brownies without any chocolate and put some white and some peanut butter chips in them instead. It turned out SO AWESOME! (I didn’t frost them either.) A few years ago, I had to give up all things that cause me heartburn, chocolate being a big offender. I was really despairing of ever finding anything to approximate a brownie, but thanks to you I no longer despair!
My god, those brownies look great.
Foods I can’t be trusted around: A whole lot of stuff. I gave absolutely no self-control. I try not to eat too many unhealthy stuff, but when I do, I’m never satisfied with just one little slice of cake or one cookie. But the worst offenders are Nutella, peanut butter, cake frosting, and any baked good. I have the bad habit of eating a ton of cookie or cake dough when baking. Seriously, a 24-cookie recipe becomes a dozen when I make it.
Id have to say Pizza is my fav and chocolate is a close second..as for my husband I can not keep pickles in the house, he will sit with a jar of HB pickles and eat them all then drink the juice. I cant wait to try your recipe im sure it wont last long in this house full of treat lovers.
I can’t believe I’ve never commented on these. I LOVE them and make them all the time. I leave off the ganache (made it with once, but my ganache was almost tart or something)so it’s super fast and easy and just make sure it’s full of really good chocolate. I am unable to keep myself from eating these if they are in the kitchen. Thanks for a super recipe.
Oh my gosh!!! Thank goodness I lost my peanut butter brownie recipe and found this one AND this blog!!! What gorgeous pictures and the pbb’s are already made with a container taken to my good friend and neighbor across the street. He took a bite, his eyes opened wide as he exclaimed, WOW!, and then he hurriedly stuck the rest of it in his mouth. These brownies are scrumptious.
Never had a Peanut Butter Brownie until today. Found your recipe on the web and decided to give it a try. I had to change your recipe as I require a strict gluten free & dairy free diet. I used Smart Balance vs. butter, but didn’t have enough. So I creamed the sugar with 1/2 cup SB, then added 1/2 cup brown rice oil. The only other difference was the flour – added my GF flour mixture with 2 teas. xanthan gum. They turned out awesome, Awesome, AWESOME. Very delish! Thanks for sharing.
I made these brownies and let me say WOW they were a hit! I had so many to share with co-workers (who by the way are savages), my boyfriend and all of his 10 roommates. The only thing that I did differently with the ingredients is I used Peanut butter & Co peanut butter in the white chocolate flavor. They were amazing!
I just have to chime in with the accolades for these. I brought them into work today at 8 AM & the entire pan was gone by 11:30. Best brownies ever.
Thank goodness I didn’t double the batch as I was tempted to. Somehow I got about 60 brownies of decadent size out of this recipe, which I proceeded to eat for 5 meals a day and pawn off to friends/colleagues/soccer team. And they STILL lasted for 4 days, with me and my sister sneaking one in every time we walked past the kitchen.
But WOW. I used 70% dark for the ganache with 3 drops of peppermint essence, chopped up milk chocolate instead of chips and crunchy kraft peanut butter.Mmm
baked beans with potato salad. nom nom nom nom
Cucumbers and tzatziki! Probably the healthiest here, but I just looooooove creamy garlicky tzatziki and ice cold cucumber sticks. I could eat them for every meal!
All right, I am the 153rd person leaving a comment here, but god, you deserve every bit of it. I usually am of the quiet readers that just drool around by reading your blog every morning when I get at work. But somehow I got into cookie – chocolate – obcession (I think you are part of the reason why I got into this) and I have tried your big chewy fat chocolate cookie, and since then, everyone loves me (even more) because I share (otherwise nor cookies nor pants would last very long). And yesterdcay I tried those brownies. God god, why didn’t I try those any earlier ?? (There comes the for-your-pants-sake-answer). Some are still in the fridge, mind you, but nor for too long I guess…
I am trying on your Brownie Roll-Out Cookies this week-end too :)
Chocolate cake with peanut butter icing … sigh …
i love those cookies i make them every year for my family. they are really good and fun to make with the kids.
Just making these now, and agreed on the issue of peanut butter – even when I worked for Unnamed Behemoth Natural Foods Retailer, was armed with a discount card, and had access to all sorts of organic, raw, or otherwise socially correct peanut butters, I stuck by good old Peter Pan, Jif, and Skippy. In terms of the recipe, I combined about 3/4 cup of commercial PB and 1/4 cup natural PB. Based on the scrap of dough I tried, they seemed to balance themselves out pretty well.
These look so darn good. I will be making them, right now I’m eating a Peanut butter Kandy Kake. If you know what that is then you know whereabouts I’m from. They are glorious (for a pre-packaged snack cake). I’d have to say that any cakes/cookies are my weak spot as well as peanut butter in general, yesterday I had mini chocolate covered pretzels dipped in creamy peanut butter… mmmmm. I too find it hard to not over do it when it comes to a jar of PB w/ a spoon. Talking about this makes me want another Kandy Kake :)
These are fantastic, and really easy. Next time, I’d like to try it with Skippy’s Natural Crunchy Peanut Butter. I used Ghiradelli’s Bittersweet chocolate and it was perfect. We’re storing them in the fridge, and honestly, it will take us (2 adults, 3 kids) a while to get through the container – as in longer than this weekend. I think I cut them into 24 bars. A great Winter snack. I don’t think I could stomach them in Summer – besides our Summer favorite is the Blueberry Crumb Bars.
Oh my! I was inspired by this recipe and made it today. I replaced 1 cup of the white sugar with light brown sugar, used Laura Schudders natural crunchy peanut butter and omitted the egg yolk. They are fabulous. The brown sugar seems to deepen the peanut flavor and, you are so right, the dark chocolate really is wonderful with the peanut butter. I will definately make them again.
Can’t leave Frito’s or cheese puffs alone, and I don’t like salty things usually!
I made this over the weekend… I got excellent feedback from the people that were mad at me for creating such a wonderful, fattening dessert.
One recommendation…. if the idea of chocolate chip ganached peanut butter cookie doesn’t make you swoon…. you may not fall in love with this brownie. I thought it was good but will not be making it again unless there are demands….
Just made these last night (quarter recipe) and oh goodness they’re good. Dangerously good. One question though – can you get it on your recipe page? It’s not on there, so I’ve been getting to it via the chocolate PB cake (which is also on my to-bake list, sigh).
Yum. I made these for a Halloween pitch-in at work and now everyone requests them – for every pitch-in! When my co-workers make the sign up sheet Peanut Butter Brownies is written next to my name. (and the recipe is so big I have enough to share with family and friends – now everyone gets excited about my work pitch-ins) Thank you!
I am 11 weeks pregnant and suffering from a horrible peanut butter obsession. I want to make these so badly, but if I do, I will abundantly exceed the poundage I am allowing myself to gain in this first trimester. Maybe I will just look at the photos and read the recipe when I need a fix.
(though when month five comes around and I have the appetite of 3 cows combined, I probably will give in, make them, and eat them all!)
You’ve cracked me up because I’m almost six months pregnant now, and although I really haven’t had any pigging out madness, I believe it is directly related to the fact that I refuse to bake anything with peanut butter in it to leave around the apartment (or make any more of this “crack“). So yes: I hear you!
you are killing me here, Deb!
If I cook up some crack, only bad things will come of it. I promise.
So, I will save that one for when I am big and pregnant and feeling extremely sorry for myself because my last month of pregnany lies between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’m doomed to be huge.
I got lucky, in that my two not-safe foods are not both terrible for me. The first is blueberries, which I eat by the pound carton. If they’re good, they will be GONE in a day or less. The second is chalva, which, if you don’t know it, OH MY GOD you have to try some now. It’s a really, incredibly delicious combination of sesame paste, honey and sugar (yes, both are necessary) with some chopped pistachios, set so that it gains the most gorgeous texture – more like a heavy meringue than the combination of ingredients going into it.
I have made these twice now, with slight alterations. The first time, I made 1/3 recipe and used only 1 egg – I like to test recipes before I serve them to others, but I don’t need a whole pan of brownies around the house for just two of us – and couldn’t 1/3 2 eggs + 1 yolk. Still, they were delicious. The second time, I added mini peanut butter cups in place of half of the chocolate chips. Excellent! These got rave reviews from the friends who ate them.
I am looking forward to making the chocolate cake w/PB cream cheese frosting & choc-PB glaze this weekend for a birthday. Thanks for posting such great recipes!
This recipe inspired me. The batch is baking in the oven right now and if the kitchen gods smile upon me (b/c i am truly the worst baker in the world) these divine smelling treats will be going to a picinc tomorrow! Thanks for all the detail that you write when breaking down the instructions, it is a huge help for a self-taught cook. BTW I was drawn here for the chocolate pB cake but figured I would start small with the brownies ;)
I made these last night and they filled the house with the smell of peanut butter – YUMMM! I’m still debating on adding the ganache. Thanks for the fantastic recipe these are moist and peanut-buttery delicious!
Wow, I tried putting them in the freezer, hoping “out of sight out of mind” but then had to get one more a couple hours later and they were even better frozen!
truly dangerous
Thanks!
I made some of these today for my husband’s birthday, and this recipe is just awesome. I made the mistake of making it in a dish that had kind of sloped sides, which meant that the bars were a little thicker than they are supposed to be and were a little tougher on the sides than I would of liked, but all in all, these were fabulous. I think the tip about the salt was spot on, and I used salted butter in addition to adding the 1/2 teaspoon of salt and regular smooth peanut butter (not natural peanut butter). Delicious. Thanks for the recipe!
yohokm – My advice to you is to bake the Chocolate peanut butter cake soon! I’ve made it several times and it is the most requested thing I bake!! Go for it!!!
Deb – I’m making the cake with all organic ingredients these days and it’s wonderful!
btw – you promised your creme de menthe brownie recipe some day . . . waiting!
Big congrats on your precious baby! Love how you related everything to food!! Cinnamon swirl hair!!! Cuteness!
These are heaven in my mouth. Seriously! I made them with the original recipe, and they disappeared quickly. I just made them again & veganized the recipe for a friend. I used milled flax (1 tbsp + 3 tbsp hot water, per egg) and earth balance soy butter instead of regular butter, and so far so good. I’m really excited to eat these again, not gonna lie. Congrats btw on your darling little nugget!
Chocolate and peanut butter are my major weakness. I just made these brownies. Oh.My.God. They are AMAZING. Thank you for bringing these into my life.
I am hampered by the 1/2 cup of peanut butter that I scraped out of the bottom of the jar, but motivated to make a 1/2 batch. For myself. Right now. None of this silly sharing-with-neighbors stuff that other readers have mentioned!
This looks like a fantastic recipe! I have a generic question for you, however; many of your dessert recipes (including your divine pumpkin chocolate brownies) call for parchment paper in the bottom of the pan – I am a college student and am likely to avoid buying anything that isn’t truly necessary – is it okay to continue using the wrapper from a stick of butter to grease my pan?
Thank you!
Meg — You can certainly try but I have only tested the recipes that suggest parchment with parchment. Parchment is a great thing to have on hand if you enjoy baking, especially for cookies, where greasing the pan can lead to spreading.
I have a couple really favourite foods. I loooove pizza, chocolate, and cheesecake. When I was a kid and feeling a little naughty, I used to make these really yummy sandwiches; peanut butter, chocolate chips, marshmallows, and rice krispies. Occasionally, I still make that sandwich. When I was really bad, I’d put about 3 tablespoons of hot chocolate mix in a mug and mix in about 1/4 teaspoon of milk. Sooo much sugar! I suppose it’s amazing I’m not diabetic. Lol.
Pizza. Any kind, any way.
Deb: If heaven had a smell, it would smell like these brownies baking. Holy. Cow. and God. Bless. America.
This is the beginning of me trying every single one of your peanut butter recipes. I plan for these to be the front line of defense against grumpy L&D nurses! Does the ganache get at least set enough to cover with saran or plastic bags so that they’re easily portable?
I was sad to find that these turned out much more like a peanut butter bar cookie than a brownie. Followed the directions & mine looked the same as the pictures… but no chewy wow factor of a brownie, with more of a cookie crumbliness.
Are these firm enough to hold their shape if I cut them with a cookie cutter?
Once baked? Absolutely.
Another winner! These were perfect, omitted the ganache though because I just am not a fan of ganaches as they go. Peanutbuttery good. May reduce the sugar a bit next time. Thanks for the recipe!
These were great. Easy, decadent, and just a perfectly satisfying treat. I used Skippy, and a half tsp salt, and it was just right. Tks for this one!
As an American living in Australia, it boggles my mind why Aussies don’t get the whole chocolate/peanut butter combination?!?!?! I am known in my circle of friends for my baking. I have just made these and can not wait for the ganach to set so I can spread the choc/PB love with these silly Aussies!!!!!!
LOVE your site and all of your recipes! Thanks for sharing!
hi deb – coming out of the closet of quietly loving your recipes to ask a question. made this one tonight for a spring equinox potluck on saturday. do you think i should freeze or just refrigerate them? and if i freeze how long do you think they will take to thaw? ps. thank you for giving me inspiration in the kitchen xo
You can do either. However, I always lean towards the freezer if it’s more than two days. Just the least risk in stale-ing.
My mom love peanut butter. We are making her a big party next week as she is turning 85 and I made this recipe for the party. It is so absolutely delicious (chocolate and peanut butter!!) that most of it is gone and I will have to make her another one. Oh well!
Holy christamundo, these are great! The smell as they were cooling was so compelling, I nibbled a few corners pre-ganache! The PB flavor isn’t as strong as I’d like it, though; I might swap 1/4 cup butter for 1/4 PB next time. I used Skippy Reduced Fat (which is my go-to brand for big brands and has always produced great flavor for Buckeyes and such) and the full 1/2 tsp salt, and half 56%, half 72% Ghirardelli with light cream on top. Satiny, rich bliss in my mouth.
This was my first time using parchment like this, and it made cleanup a breeze! Any tips for spreading the batter, though? Every time I’d spread it to side A, the whole parchment sheet would slide away from the corner of side B (even if I’d pin it with my fingers), then would do the same thing as I spread in the other direction. I ended up with unusually lumpy/thick corners.
Deb,
I’m a little in love with you and completely in love with your blog…
If I were to make these without the ganache would they be too dry?
Lasara — No, they should not be. But I won’t lie, it helps balance the heaviness of a peanut butter blondie.
These are unbelievable! And your recipe is spot on. Worked out very well. I mixed semisweet and bittersweet chocolate for the ganache and brownie. Keep up the good work!
This is by far the best brownie/blondie I have ever had! I have been begged for the recipe and on the other hand been told to never give it out! Hubs thinks it’s so good I should keep it as a “secret” recipe. Of course if people decide to google “peanut butter brownie” yours is one of the first results….o well, I guess no one should be deprived of being able to make such yummy goodness.
made these for a review session for finals today and they were a hit :) thanks so much!
Hey! I have that Ziplock box too!
I made these with quinoa flour all gluten free and they came out delicious! I also substituted the bittersweet chocolate for dark chocolate. LOVE These! Will make again.
Oh, these are GOOOOOD! Made them the other day, and they were a big hit! :)
PB + chocolate is my dangerous food combo, and these are, as promised, amazing. I stuck them in the fridge to keep the ganache from melting, and I really like them cold. But I would eat them at any temperature. Can’t wait to share them and see the ‘yum’ looks on peoples’ faces!
Whenever I want to bake something with peanut butter, I inevitably have to make a smaller batch, since I’m the only one in my family who’ll eat it. A lot of Europeans don’t really “get” the peanut butter thing, so I guess that’s why…I see that someone mentioned making them with quinoa gluten free flour and tasted good. I’m supposed to eat gluten free products, but haven’t tried baking anything gluten free, for fear that it would taste like gluten free bread…that horrible “wallpaper” type of taste…need I say more? lol
But my all time favorite foods would have to be Tiramisu, any kind of cheesecake, crepes with nutella and banana, gelatos, plum dumplings (very popular all over Europe). There’s a layer cake that we make that’s probably similar to those Napolean squares that are heavenly.
i going to make this. i will snack on it during exams and it will keep up my spirits!! might have it without ganache though to make less guilty. and add chocolate chips or something through it? would that work??
i cant say no to jasmine pearl milk tea. and banoffee pie. and bread thats soft soft soft on the inside and slightly chewy on the outside. and mushroom risotto. and lemon souffe pancakes with blueberry compote. could you try make those please? i had them once and they were unforgetably divine.
Wow. I am leaving work early to go home and make these. Right now. :)
Peanut butter and chocolate, how cruel can one be, lol? They are my two go to’s let me tell you! Some days I just take a spoon of natural peanut butter and choco chips on top and snack on it just like that, kind of like the old commercail for Reese’s peanut butter cups, ” you got your peanut butter on my chocolate!” ” no you got your chocolate on my peanut butter” I do not go a day with out Peanut butter! It is my breakfast every morning, banana with peanut butter! I am was on this sight looking for peanut butter and cream cheese brownies but now I am on my way to get those choco chips!
Just made these for dinner with my boyfriend’s family – UMMM they were incredible and came out exactly like your photos. Plus now I’m in good with the family. ;)
Imade regular Hersheys brownies!
MMM. Then i saw these so i made them too :)
Ahh chocolate happiness.
hey I love chocolate and even peanut butter,but I never tried peanut butter cake….
Hi Deb! I’ve only just discovered your blog and can see I have a large archive of delicious to work through! :D
I baked these brownies / blondies on the weekend and they are disappearing fast! I tried using crunchy peanut butter (as this is what we always buy) but I think the random chunks of peanut took away from the texture of the brownie, so will definitely use smooth next time. I also skipped the ganache, mostly because I was desperate to eat them, and think they are delicious just as is.
Thanks so much for sharing the recipe.
I’ve credited and linked back to your page :)
Molly
Amazing! Made these last night for my soldier…amazing. We made them last night and snuck a taste without the ganache as well..still tasty!
Beautiful. They’re in the oven now!
Deb, I hope you’ll be able to get this in time but I do have an urgent question for you. I plan on making this recipe for a guy friend of mine whom is three hours away from me. It’s his birthday and I’m planning to surprise him with the brownies after a long work day. I was just wondering – Have you ever shipped any of your culinary creations before? How do you think the peanut butter brownies would do? All tips would be appreciated – thanks!!! :-)
So… Nutella is awesome. Nutella subbed for peanut butter in these bars? Amazing. I reduced the sugar, since nutella is sweeter and threw in some chopped hazelnuts for texture. They were gone before I could even remember these normally have a ganache topping.
Ah! Chocolate peanut butter anything. Can’t resist. I ate a whole pan of chocolate peanut butter bars last week with the rationale, “If I eat them all now, I can’t be tempted to eat them all week.”
Thank you for the peanut butter/chocolate archive. :)
Cheesecake!! I think I can eat my entire NY cheesecake in one day(I’ve never made one just for myself…there is a reason for that!) Going to make these now and send them off to a college student in the morning…hopefully, they last that long!
Hi Deb, this is my first time commenting but I’ve loved your gorgeous site for a while now. I tried these brownies and they came out excellent (and I’m new to baking). Although I think I would reduce the sugar next time. Thank you so much for sharing! Looking forward to trying your many other recipes :)
I’ve made peanut butter brownies before, but the texture wasn’t right or there wasn’t enough PB flavor – this is simply AMAZING! I made these in a 9 x9 pan and got wonderfully thick 2″ brownies. There was a bit too much sugar for my tastes, but it was hardly noticeable. Thanks soo much for this recipe!
I made these the other night. I was super excited about them. I served a few up just before the ganache had fully set. I wasn’t too impressed and was a little disappointed because my husband wasn’t that impressed either.
However wait until about 18 hours had passed, tested them again and boy they were soooo good. Much better after they sit for while. Thanks for the great recipe.
I made these yesterday for a bake saw. Now, I cheated and used a jellyroll pan. And bittersweet chocolate, because that’s usually what I have around. With the reduced peanut butter to ganache ratio, the bittersweet was a little strong. So I cut them up in little bites and rolled everything in powdered sugar. I had to dig out the scrap pieces for my helpers, or else I would have none left!
Despite my love of peanut butter and chocolate, my real weakness is pecans. Have to buy double the amount needed.
Just put these in the oven. If the batter is a good judge of the brownie,I will be in hog heaven!!! Can’t wait to taste these and neither can my hubby and daughter!
Wow. These look absolutely amazing. I am attempting to give up chocolate for January but will definitely be trying these in February. Thanks.
I made these for a work birthday party and they were devoured! Next time I’ll leave out the chocolate chips – the chocolate flavor was overpowering with the chips and the ganache.
These are AMAZING! I forgot the tbsp of butter in the ganache, but of course they still rock. These are definitely dangerous to have around.
YUM! Why havent I made these before?! I added white choc chips in place of the choc chips and it was great, but would have been better with a higher quality white choc. I skipped the ganache, used half whole wheat flour, and half raw sugar. Perfect treat to take to a party!
Just made these delicious brownies. I think they are the best thing I have ever made. They are heavy, dense, and oh so peanut-buttery. uh-mazing!
Just wanted you to know that I sent these to a friend serving in the Middle East, and apparently there was a chorus of “Oh My Gods” as people around the office bit into and ate them. They have been requested again. :)
These turned out fantastic. I was bringing about 10 of these to a party and only 8 made it there….way too tasty!
I just made these brownies … loved them … and posted on them! Thanks for sharing your recipe! I’ve linked back to your site.
ok doke. I just knocked off a batch of these salacious wonders. Dare I taunt you with the fact that I used SKIPPY? Bwhahhahhahha.
Deelish. Very rich, so I’ve divided the batch into 4 sections and have frozen them. My husband hasn’t been that excited in months….. which in all honesty, is probably why I was attracted to the chocoalate pb mix in the first place! :)
I didn’t add salt and i followed your recipe as is.
I just made these, and they are fantastic. Best bar cookie-type dessert I have ever made or eaten. And I’ve made a lot! Thanks so much for the recipe.
Hmm, I made these today because I LOVE PB & chocolate and I’m wondering what I did wrong. I do bake regularly (someone once asked my nephew what his Aunt Sara did and he said, “she bakes cookies”) so it isn’t one of those rookie mistakes, but I did find myself going back through the recipe to see if I forgot something. Like some other posters noted, I think I need to reduce the baking time because mine were more done than those pictured after 40 minutes in the oven. Then my ganache didn’t set so they are really messy. I used natural style peanut butter (the kind that separates) and I really can’t taste it. I did add a 1/4 tsp of salt so maybe that wasn’t enough. So what I have is a dry, not peanut buttery tasting blondie with an overpowering amount of messy, runny chocolate on top. Any thoughts on where I went astray, especially with the ganache? Your pictures look WAY better than my finished product. ;) Thanks for your help.
Instead of boiling the cream for the ganache (which left a gross film the first time), I did heated the ingredients over a double boiler and it worked perfectly.
Just made your pb brownies and had a little accident as well but I came up with a trick to hide it!
I used a bigger baking dish and after only 30 minutes the brownies where already a bit too dark on the edges. After cooling the edges where pretty crunchy, so I just cut off about 1,5cm on each side. Then I obviously wasn’t fast enough spreading the ganache – it didn’t turn out as nice and even as yours. To hide the imperfections I decided to crush the crunchy egdes and sprinkle the crumbs on top of the ganache. It looks different than yours now, but not bad at all… : )
Thanks for the recipe!
I made this yesterday and it was fantastic! I forgot salt in the recipe and instead dusted sea salt on top. It looked/tasted fabulous!
Made these today with chunky Skippy peanut butter and Nutella ganache over the top – unreal! Thanks for another great recipe, Deb!
I just made these and i agree with the commenter that said that they didn’t have a strong enough peanut butter flavor and that the baking time listed was probably too long. mine were in a 13×9 pyrex pan, i set the timer for 40 minutes and when i took them out the edges were too brown. i think the peanut butter flavor might have been more intense if i had added the salt, but i didn’t since i was using regular hydrogenated PB.
i also agree with the person who said the sugar could be dialed back a bit. also, i made two changes, one was probably a mistake: using half whole wheat flour (i think i was trying to make them slightly healthier?), the other one worked out great i think, which was skipping making the ganache and instead i just sprinkled the chocolate chips on top immediately after pulling it out of the oven, waited for them to melt, and then spread them over the top.
overall i didn’t love this recipe, if i had left the flour alone and added the salt it might have been better.
everything else i’ve made from this site has been amazing: such as the zucchini muffins and the spinach & cheese strata. and omg the cappuccino fudge cheesecake.
Oh these things are so good! Well I’m on a diet, but my family says they are :) My 9 year old son actually moaned when he took the first bite!
A question for you :) I made these once and they turned out great but I just made them again (after quite a while) and am not sure I did everything right. Is it white sugar or brown sugar? I used white.
Thank you for great recipes on your website! And the photos are amazing!
Hi yvonne — It’s white sugar. That’s what most recipes use by default; anything else is specified. Hope that helps.
These were wonderful! I didn’t use any salt, but I did use one stick salted butter, one stick unsalted, and they turned out great! I will definitely be adding this recipe to my collection and have already promised a batch to my family the next time I visit them.
Hi- LOVE the blog and have these bad boys in the oven right now. unfortunately, don’t have any cream or even half and half… better to skip the ganache, do chocolate chips on top, or can i use milk w/ more butter instead of cream? thanks!!!!
I’m baking these right now! Cannot wait to try them. I made almond butter the other day so we’ll see how they come out. Thanks for the recipe.
I was looking for the non plus ultra of PB & chocolate for a young friend at college. These must be it! Trying to decide how soft the ganache is so they could be shipped. I mean, nothing wrong with scraping the ganache off the lid and reapplying or just licking the fingers, but you know…. Thanks for all the great recipes!
oh.. dear.
lately, ii have gotten re-addicted to peanut butter for no good reason at all.
i hope these are in my future..
& i absolutely cannot have granola in the house. every few weeks or so, i convince myself that it’s “healthy” and that “i’ll just make a half batch” or something and end up eating the entire jar within 24 hours.
&& yes i’m still participating in this question 5 years later because i needed to tell some/any/nobody about that granola.. it was eating at me.. {pun unintended, but welcome}
i am gonna make this and add some bacon in it! yumm!
Does anyone know the measurements in grams? x
nutella.. by the spoonful, spread on bread, mixed into ice cream or covering strawberries or painted onto one’s upper lip so as to create the tastiest handlebar moustache known to man. I have pictures. nutella is never in the house for fear that i eat too much and lapse into a diabetic coma which thus renders me unable to eat ANY MORE NUTELLA. Balance is a hard-won prize in my life :)
this recipe is amazing!! the brownies came out so good. perfect for a girls’ night in! thank you : )
I made these as a prize for a competition for my high school students today (without the ganache because I made a double batch and couldn’t transport them if they weren’t stacked). Kids were literally sniffing the air around my classroom and other kids to try to find out where the delicious smell was coming from. They were a major hit and easy to make!
Thanks a ton, Deb, for teaching me how to make something I clearly will not be able to keep in the house! On my way to pouring a bowl of cereal for breakfast this morning, I took a detour to 2 of these + coffee, standing at the counter :o) I made them last night and felt, for the first time, like a decent baker!
Wanted to tell you that this recipe is delicious AND I ran out of chocolate chips but substituted with some peanut butter chips I had in the cupboard. I recommend that! I used about 1/4 cup in the batter & 1/4 cup in the ganache. Delicious!
Made these numerous times before and have eaten every bit of them! Great recipe that combines two of my favorite things: chocolate and peanut butter. Thanks a bunch Deb
This is so funny. After my own heart, as so many of these other girls (and maybe guy or two)… Reese’s PB Cups are my sweet tooth weakness, above all other sugars. The only time I dare justify having them in my house is Halloween, when I buy them “for the trick or treaters.” ;)
I swapped the chocolate chips for rolo’s…talk about taking it over the top!
Just made these with pb chips instead of chocolate chips. FABULOUS. After extensive (alas) testing, I can say with certainty that I prefer these without a chocolate ganache topping. Just the straight pb flavor works for me :0)
I am in the midst of making these for my husband’s 40th birthday. He is not a liker of cake but does like brownies… and doesn’t have a tooth for lone chocolate but does really like Reese’s Pieces and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
I am about to spread the batter into the pan, and this is the most divine smelling batter I have ever, ever smelled!
workout to pig out. have to bring dessert to a friend’s house tomorrow. this will be it (if it makes it out my front door w/out me devouring it)!
Hey Deb,
I’m traveling abroad, and the only cream I could find in the grocery was 38% unsweetened whipping cream. Can I sub it for the heavy cream in the ganache?
Thanks!
Francis — That’s just fine. In most recipes, whipping cream and heavy cream can be used interchangeably.
I tried your recipe, it s awsome!!!
http://ave-dulcis.blogspot.com/2012/10/brownies-s-kikiriki-maslacem.html
Hello there, im not sure how often you read this, but I was wondering if you could suggest the best way to adjust this awesome recipe to high elevations? I live about 8000 ft above sea level and when I tried to make these beautiful looking brownies, I almost cried when mine turned out to be a flaky brick-like thing. I had forgotten the importance on thinner atmosphere in baking. Please tell me you know how to adjust this recipe; I have been itching to try it out successfully!
I have made these regularly since you first posted this recipe, and I’ve never yet made them without someone asking for the recipe.
I made these today for a potluck. Simple and delicious. Thank you!
This is the recipe I christened my oven in my new house with 5 years ago and I still make it extremely regularly. As others have mentioned, I also leave off the ganache and it is fabulous.
Hi! I love your site and your book. Just one question… is there a trick to getting baked items like this to be cut into such neat squares? I would like to present it that way, but it never looks as good. I use sharp knives and wait for it to cool… Please let me know! Thank you!
Sarah,
In other posts (for brownies, cakes, etc.), Deb typically recommends popping the whole brownie (uncut and wrapped in foil) into the freezer to harden a bit. Then she cuts it into neat little squares, allowing them to come back to room temp before consuming.
Hope that helps!
Hi Deb,
I’m keen to make these soon – I have such a hankering for peanut butter and cake together… But I wondered if you would have any time to do the metric conversions. It would help me out in my English kitchen. Thanks for the recipes!
I made this recipe today to take to a housewarming party and they are delicious, but I was imagining them a little softer/fudgier in consistency. Do you think they would work if I used half the flour called for, or maybe 1 1/2 cup instead of 2? I love your blog, cookbook, and all your writing! Thanks!
I have made these twice already and they are always popular. SO GOOD and so irresistible! Both times I cut the butter down to 1.5 sticks and skipped a quarter cup of sugar and still get a heavenly chewy, deliciously peanut buttery chocolate blonde brownie. I also didnt have whipping cream in the house and used nondairy creamer which did the job, though the consistency was a little different. Thanks for the awesome recipe! It’s going to be a staple go-to dessert recipe!
I first made these to impress a guy I was dating… and I just made them again to celebrate my one year anniversary with him :) thank you Deb!
Mine came out delicious but a little dry. Next time, I’ll underbake them just a little.
perfect i was looking for this recipe, i just have part of it. but as for the gauche, ill skip that part. we just put the chocolate chips right on top and let the cake melt them, then spread them out. its like having a chocolate bar on top of your peanut butter brown. :)
Hi Deb! I love the recipe and am very excited to cook it tomorrow! But I was just wondering if the recipe is already in metric measures or not? Thank you so much!
It was not in metrics, but now it is. Enjoy!
I made this for a party but skipped the ganache on top (lack of cream and lack of time) – was still excellent :)
It’s a great recipe!!! I have to make it :)
This recipe is amazing. One of my favorites. I think there might be a typo in the grams of flour.
Debbie — I’m glad you like it. Did you have a problem with the flour? I always measure 125 gram cups, so it’s correct, but if there was a problem, do let me know.
made these yesterday and they are phenomenal! i would have liked them better just a little under-done — mine seem to have baked up pretty fast toward the end (checked at 30 min and they needed more time, and when i checked at 37 min they were more than done). warning: be even more of an oven hawk than i was, especially near the end!
i measured all my ingredients by weight and did not have an issue with the flour weight.
i would make these again in a heartbeat!
These are excellent if you cut them up, wrap and freeze in individual packages. Great for sending in lunches or bringing along on hikes. They’re good cold and hold up surprisingly well when wrapped for a day.
Great recipe. For extra decadence I use 1/2 peanut butter & 1/2 chocolate pecan butter that a friend makes. Wow.
while i never disliked peanut butter & chocolate as a combo, i never really sought it out, either. i guess i always felt like one flavor just got in the way of the other, like how a vanilla chocolate soft serve twist always seems like a good idea but ends up being deeply unsatisfying to me as it is neither one nor the other but rather some vague in between.
but…something happened this past year. the chocolate & pb combination just became totally irresistible to me. ice cream, cookies, you name it. i was just drooling over your chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and wondering how i could halve it and come up with an excuse to make a cake like that for just boyperson and me. but these, these seem somehow more acceptable.
(also, my favorite brownie recipe for most of my life was my mom’s creme de menthe – a chewy brownie topped with a minty, buttery frosting of sorts, and then the whole thing topped with a solid, hard, dark chocolate lid. oh man.
and also also, the food i can’t keep out of? potato salad. it’s even worse if i’m drunk or hungover. who knows why! i’d also have a big problem if there was good bread around and butter in the cabinet instead of the fridge. so i never have either.)
Can I make the ganache without the cream and butter? Just good old melted chocolate?
Trader Joes Speculoos Cookie Butter is irresistible by the (secret) spoonful.
Can’t wait to try this recipe. Friends over this weekend and will be perfect.
I beat the sugar and butter, and then realized that I did not have peanut butter! I used almond butter (Justin’s), and they are fabulous.
Oh, Deb. Does it get old hearing how great your recipes are?! These were such a huge hit at the office yesterday. I’m making another batch now to be my labor & delivery team bribes… Less than 2 weeks left until we meet our second babe!
Okay, as much as I love sweets, I would eat ALL the fruits and vegetables at a dinner if given the chance. Most folks consider a serving of properly cooked vegetables as a very small one. I on the other hand would eat the bowlful. All of them. And over any starches or sweets even. And no I’m not a vegetarian, I’m an omnivore, who loves, Loves, LOVES my veggies and fruits.
Also, sungold tomatoes. OMGosh! I can eat them off the vine until the many vines (on the urban farm where I volunteer) are empty! Though I have to admit, once the season is done, so am I. The sungold’s jsut aren’t the same.
But seriously veggies…. fresh from the field or farmer’s market…. to die for!
Now as for desserts, well made high-end creamy deliciousness can’t be beat. But first give me my veggies!
(and though I don’t like my peanut butter and chocolate to comingle, these sound delicious! I may just have to try them, and with the bittersweet chocolate, my favorite!)
Karen — You can try it, but it might be brittle and unshiny. The butter and cream give it a better consistency.
Hi Deb, I just made these and they are not soft enough… I baked them for only 40 min, but too hard, and too high….
an suggestions? do you have another peanut butter recipe for brownies?
thanks
Phyllis
I just made these and they did not come out well. Stuck to the recipe exactly. The batter was pretty greasy and when I checked on them during baking they had a 1/4″ thick slick of oil on top. Gross. Since they were baking in their own oil they came out essentially fried. The taste was good but texture was too dense, too fried and too much of a greasy mouth feel. I had to throw them out. I used TJ’s peanut butter– perhaps that was the problem? I can see how a cheaper, homogenized PB like Skippy might work better. I’m also baffled by the lack of any leavening agent in these.
Jeanette — Sorry that they did not work out for you. When baking, a regular peanut butter like Skippy almost always works best. There’s no leavener because blondies are in the brownie category (i.e. blond brownies) and brownies don’t have leavener. Or, none that I make do. Hope that clarifies a little.
I love comments from those who have made recipes so I can learn from their experiences, so I wanted to share mine :) This recipe is fantastic. I actually forgot that I made it two years ago, until I stumbled across it yesterday. I adore natural, organic PB, but for this.. I had to grab a jar of good ol’ creamy JIF. I reduced the flour by a few tbsp (which I think helped with the denseness that others had issues with) and used the salt with no issues. My biggest tip here would be to freeze them post-ganache for 20-30 min so they aren’t gooey (my ganache never firms up like the pictures, otherwise) and super easy to cut! These were a big hit for about 20 soldiers last night! :) Thanks, as always, Deb.
Just a suggestion while I wait for these to come out of the oven- maybe you could add in the step-by-step instructions to add salt as necessary. It’s my own fault but I totally forgot about it. I used Skippy so hopefully they will be as salty as need be, and I sprinkled them with sea salt just in case. :) Thanks as usual! Excited to try these.
Those ridiculous super sweet orange marshmallow circus peanuts. Nobody (me) can eat just one :(
Made these today without the topping. They are delicious. Perfect balance of PB and chocolate for me, thus I skipped the topping. I halved the recipe and made it in a 9×9; worked great though maybe not as thick as the full recipe made in a 9×13. Thanks for the recipe!
Normally I love the recipes here, but I made this, and I was unhappy with how it turned out. Maybe I over baked it- it looked exactly like the picture, but the texture was really odd, almost dry.
Can you make these blondie style, one bowl, melted butter, no mixer?
I haven’t but I suspect it should be fine.
Do you think chunky peanut butter would work? Thanks!
Bake for 40-45 minutes?!?! Is this a misprint? I’ve never baked blondies or brownies that long. I’m going to try for 20-25 and see how they look. Hoping for the best!
I had high hopes for these brownies, but they didn’t turn out as I expected. Per the recipe description, I was hoping for a blondie like texture, but these are quite crunchy and crumbly, especially the edges (and not necessarily in a good way, at least for my personal tastes). I took mine out after 35 minutes and wish I had stopped at 32-33 (though my bars look exactly like the pictures). I’m also finding the peanut butter flavor to be a bit lackluster. I followed the recipe exactly and used Skippy peanut butter. These certainly won’t go to waste, but I was hoping for a different result!
This is a favorite recipe of mine! I substitute the semi-sweet with bittersweet in both the ganache and the brownies for that deeper flavor. We also enjoy the bit of crunch in the brownie!
At first I thought these were a bit lackluster…. but I find myself longing for the next time I can eat one! Two notes: this ganache recipe is brilliant. It’s so easy and foolproof that I’ll start putting it in everything! Also, I didn’t have enough chocolate chips so I used peanut butter chips in the brownie and it worked great. Who doesn’t love peanut butter on peanut butter?
I ran into some hiccups along the way so my ingredients/process were altered, but it turned out lovely. The office fawned over them the next day. First I used a 10×14 pan. The brownie was made with milk chocolate chips.
For the Ganache I was running short on cream so I used 3 Oz unsalted butter, and topped the measuring cup up for the remained of 1 cup of milk. (People paying attention will not only half a cup of cream was called for) Thus when added hot to the chips and butter the ganache was closer to chocolate milk. So I set it on the stove scraping the sides and bottom of the sauce pan constantly with a spatula, to keep it from burning, until it thicked. Poured over the brownie before it had a chance to cool and covered with plastic wrap. Even messing up that much didn’t ruin them. The brownie was a bit dry, but the ganache was a bit wet, so it evened out.
These are deliciously addicting! I made them prior to the weekend and delivered some to friends for the holidays. Per the comments it sounded as if they came out a bit on the drier denser side. So I made the following alterations:
1. half dark brown and half white sugar (for added moisture)
2. added 1/2tsp baking powder
I cooked them for approx 35mins and they were nice and moist in center, slightly dryer on edges. A great balance imo.
Oh hail the benefits of a full pantry! Woke up at 6:00 remembering that I was on the hook for for “something” for the neighborhood bake sale. I only had chunky peanut butter — but I thought it was a great substitution. And different types of chocolate chips (used up the dribs and drabs). Reading the notes I kept a close eye on the baking — only was in for 30ish minutes. Could probably have pulled out at 27 minutes (I like brownies on the gooier side). The QA nibble from the corner edge was delicious.
This is a good bar cookie. There is enough peanut butter flavor and the texture is soft. If I make these again I would skip the chocolate topping and just add a few more chips/chunks to the dough. The topping was tasty, but it overwhelmed the taste of the cookie beneath and a thinner topping might not be enough to spread evenly. I would also salt a bit more aggressively. I used natural peanut butter and 1/2 tsp salt. The raw dough tasted salty enough, but I thought it tasted a little flat after baking.
Aside from the taste, the best thing about these bars was that they were moist and served without much crumbling. I did substitute 100g brown sugar for an equivalent mass of the white and was careful not to overbake. I kept them for three days in a tightly covered container (until they ran out) and they didn’t seem to dry out at all.
Made these yesterday and they turned out great. Reading the reviews about dryness I started watching the pan carefully at 35 minutes, but it was so gooey that I waited until 40 minutes, when there were still plenty of moist crumbs on my toothpick. I thought I was safe but the finished brownies were dry on the outer 2″ or so (but perfect in the middle). I think the issue was my glass pan– glass retains heat longer than metal, so it kept cooking the brownies even after they were removed from the oven. Next time I’ll take the brownies out at 30 minutes, or use a metal pan.
Hi Deb,
I am a HUGE fan and have made these brownies so many times. Do you think I could use this ganache on a yellow cake, for a birthday cake? The birthday girl I am baking for does not care for typical frosting, so I am trying to be creative! Thank you!!
Well – this happened, my beloved bought a jar of cashew butter, and wants me to make something yummy with it…. decadence knows no limits. I will report back.
Abby
If you really love dark chocolate could you do this with a darker chocolate chip? If so what do you recommend? Or do you think the semi sweet pairs nicely w/ the pb? I for one LOVE the dark choc pb cups at Trader Joe so I am thinking I might like this recipe with dark chocolate? Would love your opinion. Thanks!
I definitely think you could use darker chocolate.
I’ve made these several times now and they’re delicious. This time I increased the salt to closer to a teaspoon (and used Skippy!) and used milk chocolate chips inside instead of semisweet. They were a hit as always!
I cannot be trusted around good, fresh, grass-fed, raw milk. The kind where you can taste the warm meadow and kind of smell the cow smell. Weird, I know, but I’ll drink a gallon of milk in an hour or two if it’s near me. It makes a convenient on-the-go breakfast, though.
Unclear why parchment paper is required. No mention of it later in description. I’m assuming it makes it easier to get them out?
Funny reading this so many years after it has been published and seeing how popular it still is. Totally have to try and make these.
Also, I completely feel how you felt then, I had a day when I made several different cakes and brownies. I wrote friends and offered to bring them stuff. They were all like, no we are busy, blah blah. Not sure what’s wrong with people sometimes.
Oh my granny! These look and sound amazing! The recipe looks easy to modify for my dietary restrictions as well. Going to give them a try this weekend. Must go to my hippie store for my gluten free flour since my child made cookie dough yesterday and used the last of it.
Any tips on freezing these?
They should freeze well. Put layers of parchment or waxed paper between them and pack them tightly. Defrost them unwrapped in the fridge, so the chocolate on top doesn’t get messed up.
40 minutes was 10n minutes over done – and its not my oven!. I usually have this problem with Smitten Kitchen recipes and forgot to adjust….Please consider gettin your oven calibrated ;-)
I made this for a cookie swap and they were a huge hit! Highly recommend adding flake salt on top as the ganache sets.
My first baking adventure of corona isolation 2020. They are fantastic. Changes based on using what I had: used crunchy PB instead of creamy. Halved the batch and baked in a round 8″ cake pan. Used 2% milk and more butter for the ganache since I didn’t have heavy cream. Cut them into skinny wedges since. Totally delicious. Love finding a winner from deep in the archives. Thanks Deb :)
*since they were in a round pan.
Oh my! I have been looking for a pb brownie recipe as close to Sweet Mandy B’s (Chicago – Lincoln Park) as I can get and this is a close second! But mine were too crumbly! Now, I was in a hurry and didn’t measure the flour, and I couldn’t watch them bake bc I was running around a teenager and they maybe have stayed in 2-3 min too long. But I would love to know your thoughts on the excessively crumbly factor? Also, if you have a glossy light soft chocolate frosting recipe to recommend it would bring me that much closer to Mandy’s! Thank you so much!!
What kind of peanut butter did you use? And peanut butter baked goods are usually on the crumbly side, or I’ve always found them to be.
Thanks for your response! I used Skippy. I didn’t realize that about peanut buttery things – good to know! Thank you!
I have probably made these at least 5-7 times over the years and realized I never left a comment! These are absolutely amazing. My husband who loves peanut always requests them when I ask what he wants me to bake. :) Thanks for such a great recipe!
Baked today for friend’s April 4 birthday – so wicked!
They are delightful.
I just made these for like the 15th time…I love them so much! I have the batter done in less time than the oven takes to preheat. I only do 1/2 batch at a time, in a 9×9 pan. I line the pan with parchment so there is no cleanup and they pop right out! Also – I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1 to 1 blend flour. And natural Jif or Skippy peanut butter. One egg (don’t worry about the extra yolk for the half batch). I underbake just a tad. Everyone loves them and my GF friends think they are the best cookie/bars ever.
These are delicious, but were pretty hammered at 40 minutes–more like a crunchy cookie, than a blondie. I also used a metal (not glass) pan, which may have affected my results.
Next time I’d start checking them at 30 minutes.
My daughter and I made these for a Sunday dinner. Very delicious, but the peanut butter flavor is completely buried. When asked about it, no one could even tell that it was there.
How have U been following you for longer than I can remember and never known this recipe?! I too am Reeses obsessed/try to never have in my home because I cannot control myself/sitting here in March with a foot of snow on the ground craving chocolate peanut butter. Thanks Deb!!