Bridezilla Bakes

In the words of my colleague: “Ohmigosh….. this tastes like I’m biting into a huge Reeses peanut butter cup.”

I have only been blogging for a little over a month, and I already have two recipes waiting in the queue that combine peanut butter and chocolate. I’m skipping over some meals and whatnot to bring you these blondies, because they were seriously that good. Given my propensity for peanut butter and chocolate, I am also anticipating with a little anxiety that sometime soon there may come a time when there is nothing left in the queue but recipes featuring… peanut butter and chocolate! That wouldn’t be a bad week of posts, for sure, but some people have allergies and some people have no sense of what’s delicious, so I’m striving for variety in my recipes and trying to please the masses by not overwhelming everyone with what happens to be my favorite flavor profile.

Onto the blondies. I’m calling them blondies, even though I’ve seen similar bars called brownies, because, well… they are blonde, like my highlights on good days. They also don’t have a cakey texture like some brownies — they are similar to a dense, gritty, peanut butter fudge. Really, my colleague was right: the nearest texture equivalent is a peanut butter cup — smooth peanut butter with a little sandiness, enveloped in smooth, dense chocolate. I served these at (another) info session I had for my students, and they not only ate them, but packed them up in napkins and took them back to their dorms.

Gotta love college students.

The blondie recipe comes from Joy the Baker (love her!) and the ganache is a basic one I picked up from Smitten Kitchen. Now, Joy mentions that it’s possible to add chocolate chips to her blondies, or to frost them… I basically did both, and I think it really works! Feel free to try her milk chocolate frosting — I just wasn’t into all that powdered sugar — but the ganache was maybe my favorite part of the whole thing.

No, it was the peanut butter part.

Nope, it was the ganache.

OK… I just can’t get enough of the combination! You gotta try it!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Blondies

From Joy the Baker

• 10 Tablespoons unsalted butter cut into 5 cubes
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1 cup smooth, natural, salted peanut butter
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 ½ cups dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter or spray a 9×13-inch pan.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter and brown sugar together until the butter is just melted. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes, then add the peanut butter.  Stir until incorporated. Allow to cool for 5 minutes more – it needs to be cool enough so that when you add the eggs, they won’t start cooking!

While the butter/sugar/peanut butter is cooling, whisk together salt, flour and baking powder.

After 10 total minutes of cooling, whisk the eggs and vanilla extract into the butter/peanut butter mixture.

Add dry ingredients all at once to the wet ingredients (if your saucepan isn’t big enough, you’ll have to transfer the wet ingredients to a larger bowl, then add the dry ingrients).  Stir until just incorporated.  Fold in the chocolate chips. Pour the thick batter into the prepared pan and smooth out using a knife or offset (frosting) spatula.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the center of the blondies comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before adding the ganache.

Dark Chocolate Ganache

From Smitten Kitchen

• 1 ½ cups semisweet chocolate chips (9 ounces)
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened

Put chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl.

In a small saucepan, bring cream to a boil, 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.

Tags: brownies, chocolate, peanut butter