Reese's Brownie Bites

For full disclosure...

Melted butter and chocolate chips erupted in my kitchen mid-afternoon one Sunday.

They were supposed to combine with peanut butter cup splendor and make it to Best Wurst Fest (think urban hipster church backyard version of a church supper with much sausage grilling).

This sequence of events did in fact happen. Like much of life, it did not happen as planned.

My Reese's babes did not want to come out of their little muffin tins until they were fully cooled.  

Cooling was taking about 10 years per brownie.
Three batches remained to be cooked.

I called in the assistance of a less cooperative nonstick tin.

 I was scooping batter. 

I was unwrapping gold foil.

 I was delicately hacking at the edges of cooked brownies only for them to melt into an ugly blob. 

I needed to shower before re-entering public. 

It was time to go.

In the end, I was clean and had half of my baked goodies to take and share. 

The kitchen was not clean. The other half of the brownies were in multiple tins, on a rack, in a container, smeared on the counter.

But my house had peanut butter chocolate decadence to keep us sane for the next few days, says the sweet-obsessed optimist in me.

This post is brought to you by Madoline's efforts to slash the idea that all things online are perfect and pretty. She knows baked goods make messes and result in imperfection. And she reminds herself that in real life marriages, children, vacations and all instagrammed and facebooked and blog prettiness are, in fact, messy, too. Oh, the lies to the contrary she subconsciously believes!

Peanut Butter Bliss Brownies

When my coworker shows the first issue of our new Vestavia Hills paper to potential advertisers, here's what happens: Flip page, flip page, flip page, flip page.... (stare at page because these babes are on it)... Coworker says, "They are as good as they look. I tried them"

Brilliant baker of Vestavia Hills submitted this recipe photoless, so of course I had to play test kitchen and bake them, make 'em look pretty for the camera and then bring them into the office.

The Formula:
Dense, chewy brownie base
Super thick layer of peanut butter icing
Chocolate Ganache

Beware, they are rich, as in the normal person can only eat a small piece (but I am not normal in this regard). And they will give you a 13x9-inch pan worth of far-from-skinny bliss, so bring 'em to  eaters of sweets.

Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Pretzels

These weren't as buttery sinful as the Ritz Bits peanut butter sandwiches I first thought to chocolate cover, but they have the same salty-chocolate, peanut butter flavor delight and are still plenty decadent. Plus, there's nice crunch to each bite—more crunch if you can make them last more than one bite.

The ingredient list and process is super simple to make these, but they do require tedious assembly. Hence, they are either a teamwork project with good company or something to busy your hands while you become completely enthralled in a British countryside family uppercrust drama circa 1910s (What will happen to the money? Who will she marry? How will they adapt to social changes? Ooo.) a.k.a. my latest addiction, Downton Abbey.

So, if you happen to have chocolate, peanut butter and pretzels in your pantry, you should make better-than-packaged-candy while you escape into a good show or conversation at the same time.

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Trifle

Chocolate cake.
Chocolate sauce.
Peanut butter whipped cream.
Whipped cream.
Layer.
Repeat.

That's about all you need to know to salivate over this masterpiece, who, unfortunately, I didn't capture super well on camera.

Oh, but you should also know that, of course, the layers all meld together into creamy chocolate-peanut butter wonderfulness that only the crazy chocolate-haters or peanut butter-haters can resist.

One more selling point: all the Chocolate-Peanut Butter Trifle recipes in internet land sent up food snob red flags for me with their instant vanilla pudding, so I opted for the fluffy, creamy peanut butter pie filling I love and good old fashioned whipped up whipping cream. I only cheated by using box cake mix.


And one final, final point: trifles are time consuming but also pretty impossible not to make an impressive presentation. It was by far the winner of my dessert for our annual Fourth of July family gathering weekend of 18.

If you like chocolatey trifles, you should try this simple Brownie Trifle or Tiramisu Toffee Trifle Pie. And if you like more fruity trifles, try Peach Trifle or just make up your own layers of cakey stuff and creamy stuff.

Double Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are my friend Haynes' specialty: peanut butter cookie dough stuffed with chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. In our college apartment, she baked a rotation of these and her pumpkin bread, and I filled in the gaps with Tollhouse cookies and chocolate cupakes with buttercream icing. Our other two roommates observed how baking crazed we were, invited friends over to help rid of temptation to eat all of what we baked ourselves, and have since picked up baking in their own way.

My version of Haynes cookies used a chewy peanut butter dough that isn't too powerfully peanut buttery and the Hayzian chocolate and peanut butter chips. Anyone with the slightest taste for peanut butter and chocolate could easily scarf down this whole stack of delish.

I gave away lots of the cookies but, being the selfish baker I am, saved some for my 3 p.m. pick-me-up at work. Bananas leave a weird aftertaste in my mouth, and I gotta have some sugar to wash it down.