Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

A blog post? What?

Hey, look, I'm back! With recipes! I have a couple backed up and am making more soon, so I'm *hoping* I'll be a bit more regular in posts and such... no promises, though. Apparently, I'm not great at keeping digital promises (yes, I read the previous post in here. yes, I'm sorry). So,

onward- to the recipe! This one is an original of mine and is pretty tasty, so say many people (classmates, my dad's coworkers, so on).

If you want the cut-and-dry version, look below. If you want a long and garbled version possibly teeming with helpful hints and tips, scroll down to the section labeled "The Long of It."

The Short of It (this is the recipe as it appears in my handy-dandy recipe book)

The Brownies

6 oz (6 squares) unsweetened chocolate

1 C butter

2 1/2 C granulated sugar

3 Eggs

2 C all-purpose flour

1/2 Tsp salt

3/4 Tsp vanilla extract

The Peanut Butter Batter

2/3 C smooth peanut butter

1/2 C+3 Tbsp butter, softened

3/4 C granulated sugar

1 Egg

1/2 Tsp vanilla extract

1/4 C all-purpose flour

• Preheat oven to 375° Fahrenheit.
• Chop chocolate and place in a microwave-safe bowl with butter. Microwave for 2 minutes. Stir until completely melted.
• Stir in sugar, then eggs.
• Stir in flour and salt. Batter will be stiff.
• Add vanilla. Set aside.
• In another bowl, beat butter and peanut butter together with an electric mixer.
• Beat in the sugar, the egg, then the vanilla.
  
• Beat in the flour.
• Pour chocolate batter into a greased 13x9-inch pan. Make sure it reaches all the corners and edges.
• Swirl several tablespoons of peanut butter batter into the chocolate layer, but do not completely mix it in. Instructions with pictures can be found here.
• Bake for 20 minutes or until almost cooked through.
• Remove from the oven and sprinkle with 3/4 C chocolate chips and 1/2 C peanut butter chips. Press into the surface slightly.
• Continue baking for 5 to 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out relatively clean.
• Yields at least 20, depending on how you cut it.

The Long of It (this is essentially what's up above, but with a bunch of tips and pictures and other junk you may or may not find useful)

The Brownies

6 oz (6 squares) unsweetened chocolate

1 C butter

2 1/2 C granulated sugar

3 Eggs

2 C all-purpose flour

1/2 Tsp salt

3/4 Tsp vanilla extract

The Peanut Butter Batter

2/3 C smooth peanut butter

1/2 C+3 Tbsp butter, softened

3/4 C granulated sugar

1 Egg

1/2 Tsp vanilla extract

1/4 C all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 375 ° F. Chop up the chocolate and the butter and put them all in a microwave-safe bowl, then microwave it for 2 minutes. Seriously. Two full minutes on high, or whatever your microwave's regular setting is. As long as your microwave isn't super-powered, I promise you won't burn your chocolate.

When the microwaving is through, you'll have mostly- or completely-melted butter and partially melted chocolate bits, depending on how finely you chopped them (I don't chop mine very finely at all). See? Toldja. Take a nice, sturdy spoon and stir the butter and chocolate, which will be quite hot, until everything is completely melted. It might take a bit, but this is a good method and so much easier than stove-top melting.

Once your butter and chocolate is completely melted, stir in the sugar, then put the eggs and stir those in all at once. Next, put in the flour and salt and mix them in. Your batter is going to be stiff- close to dough, but not quite there. So, really- stiff. It's supposed to be that way, don't worry about it. In fact, here's a nice picture.

It may turn out a bit thinner than that, though. Add the vanilla and then set this stuff aside.

Next we get to play with the electric mixer to make the peanut butter batter. Goody. My hand mixer- Ham, as I've dubbed him- is my nemesis. Not that he doesn't work properly, I just don't agree with noisy machines. I don't like sewing machines, I don't like vacuum cle

aners, I really, really don't like paper shredders, and I don't like electric mixers.

Regardless, the damn things are useful, so set your mixer up with regular beaters (both a stand or hand mixer will do fine) and blend together your peanut butter and softened butter. Next, beat in the sugar, then the egg, then the vanilla, and lastly, the flour. Then you're done.

A word of advice- no mater how much you dislike your mixer, I wouldn't recommend flinging one of the beaters across your kitchen. At least, not until you've gotten the batter off it.

It was an accident, I swear.

Anyway... Next, pour the brownie batter into a greased 13x9-inch pan and make sure it goes into all the corners and edges. Scoop several tablespoons (use an actual spoon or a small cookie scoop) of the peanut butter batter onto the brownie batter and swirl them in- but don't actually mix it all the way in. Use as much or as little as you want, but I'd suggest using at least half the batter you made. Once again, for instructions and nifty pictures on how to mix in the peanut butter batter, see here.

Bake the brownies for about 20 minutes and take the pan back out of the oven. Sprinkle 3/4 C of chocolate chips and 1/2 C of peanut butter chips over the top of the brownies and push them into the top a bit before putting the pan back into the oven and baking it for another 5 to 10 minutes. When an inserted toothpick comes out mostly clean (if it's completely clean, your brownies may be a tiny bit dry), they're all done. Take them out, but the pan on a cooling rack, and let them cool a while (about an hour or so) before slicing them up.

This will yield as many as you can cut into the pan... anywhere from one very large brownie to around 30 very small brownies.

So, that's it. Happy baking!