Yes you read that right. These are probably the most decadent, delicious and all-American brownies (if only you could colour them red, white and blue they’d be perfect!) After yesterday’s post on American comfort food, Chris and I were talking and decided that brownies and peanut butter really should have been included. So Chris, trying to make up for centuries of British imperialism, decided to whip up a batch of these for me. And they are outstanding. I’m pretty sure that if our Founding Fathers understood that the pursuit of happiness included mixing peanut butter and chocolate in as many occasions as possible.
You’ll need:
For the peanut butter filling:
- Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/Gas mark 3. Grease and line a 20cm square dish.
- Melt butter, chocolate, sugar, cocoa, salt in a double boiler (Place in a bowl over simmering pan of water, making sure it does not touch the water). It will be a bit grainy but that’s okay.
- Leave to cool until warm rather than hot.
- While cooling, make the peanut butter filling by stirring peanut butter, milk, sugar and vanilla until well combined. Add more milk and sugar to achieve the right consistency (it should be still like cookie dough)
- Back to the brownies, in a separate bowl mix the eggs and vanilla until just beaten and stir in a few spoonfuls of the chocolate mix
- Slowly pour the eggs into the bowl of chocolate mix, stirring all the time
- Keep stirring with a wooden spoon until the mix is fairly smooth and shiny
- Sieve in the flour and stir until well combined. Mix should be smooth and lump free.
- Pour half the mix into the dish and spread over the over the PB filling like a crumble. Throw in a few chunks of leftover chocolate as well if you like.
- Pour over the rest of the mix and bake for 25 mins or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean
- Leave to cool completely and then refrigerate for nice cleanly divided squares, or just eat the melty goo with a spoon and bourbon vanilla ice cream.