Recipe: Fudgy Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

These may look like ordinary brownies, but they have a yummy surprise inside!

Reese's peanut butter cups are probably my favorite candy, especially during the Halloween season. Growing up, I would go trick-or-treating with a friend who didn't like peanut butter, so I would get all of her Reese's. Talk about the best friendship ever!

I went to Sam's Club and bought a large pack of Reese's with this recipe from the Live Well Bake Often blog already in mind.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup (115 grams) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs room temperature
• 1/2 cup (65 grams all-purpose flour) (spooned & leveled)
• 1/2 cup (40 grams) natural unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 12 full-size peanut butter cups unwrapped

INSTRUCTIONS

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Line an 8-inch square baking dish with aluminum foil, leaving some overhang for easy removal. Spray with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the melted butter and granulated sugar until well combined. Mix in the eggs and vanilla extract until fully combined.
• Sift the flour, cocoa powder, and salt into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
• Pour half of the brownie batter into the prepared baking pan. Place the peanut butter cups on top of the brownie batter, cutting some in half as needed to make them all fit in one even layer.
• Add the remaining brownie batter on top and spread into one even layer, making sure all of the peanut butter cups are covered.
• Bake 350°F for 30-35 minutes or until the tops of the brownies look set. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Slice into 9-12 squares, serve, and enjoy!

I liked the notes within the list of ingredients, like making sure the eggs are room temperature and the butter is melted yet cooled (and that you should unwrap the Reese's! haha). The only mistake I found in the recipe is step #3 when the recipe says to sift the dry ingredients...into the dry ingredients. And honestly, who takes the step to sift the dry ingredients? I will say that I did get some chunks of cocoa powder in the batter, so sifting would have been helpful with that, but I'm lazy. I also found that the batter was a bit sticky to work with, and spreading it into the pan and on top of the candy was somewhat difficult. It almost seemed like there wasn't enough batter to cover the candy!

Of course, even with those things in mind, these brownies were delicious and came out great. How can you go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate?!