Peanut Butter Brownies

What do I make when I've got 75 hungry teenagers to bake for and very little extra time in my schedule?  I bake brownies!!!  Peanut butter brownies to be exact. (This was one of 2 giant brownie trays.)

This delicious brownie recipe is baked in a full size baking sheet so depending on how you cut them - you can get 24-36 brownies out of every batch.  I tripled the recipe and made 3 big trays of brownies last week because I knew they wouldn't last long around a crew of hungry teenagers.

I created this recipe using my traditional brownie recipe and adding a delicious peanut butter cookie batter.  I never know how these little baking experiments are going to turn out and quite honestly - they fail more than they succeed.  Fortunately, these brownies turned out fantastic.  I love the chocolate and peanut butter combination and the kids loved them too.

Peanut Butter Brownies
Brownie Batter
2 cups butter (4 sticks)
8 ounces unsweetened chocolate
4 cups sugar
8 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour

Peanut Butter Batter
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
14 cup peanut butter
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Melt butter and unsweetened chocolate in microwave.

Whisk in eggs and sugar.

Fold in flour.

Scrape into an ungreased baking sheet.

For peanut butter batter: whisk together sugar and oil.

Whisk in egg, vanilla and peanut butter.

Fold in flour, baking soda and salt.

Scoop Tablespoons of peanut butter batter on top of chocolate batter.

Put in a cold oven.  Turn oven on to 300 and bake 40 minutes. 

The best brownies are soft and gooey and --- messy.  These peanut butter brownies are exactly that.  These brownies are delicious but because of their moist nature - they're not very photogenic.  It would be easier to cut nice clean squares if they were overbaked and cakey but I decided to sacrifice great pictures for moist, soft, chewy, gooey --- delicious --- brownies.

These brownies were a big hit with the high school kids that I served them too. 

I was left with 2 empty platters of brownies at the end of the night.  (All the evidence that I needed to let me know that these really were delicious brownies.)  These brownies also freeze beautifully in ziploc bags so if you don't need a whole batch right away - tuck some away in the freezer and save them for another day. 

Ciao!

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