Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

Since Chris was busy working all day I still have the itch to cook stuff out of sheer boredom, I decided to make some homemade brownies.  Normally I would just make his Grandma B's Brownies but  I didn't have the Hershey syrup on hand and was too lazy to go to the store.  I found what seemed like an easy and delicious looking recipe on a blog and then decided heck, we have 3 bags of Reese Cups leftover from Halloween so I'll throw some of those in too.  I also only had semi-sweet chocolate chips and salted butter on hand so I adjusted the added salt and sugar appropriately.  If I've learned anything in my ameteur cooking trials, it's that you can substitute and adjust to your personal tastes and it won't be the end of the world :).

For whatever reason I had to bump up the heat to 350 degrees after the 35 mins had elapse and let it bake an extra 5-8 minutes...maybe because of the added reese cups adding moisture to the batter?  If you try this yourself, I suggest starting at the original directions and seeing if maybe my baking times and temperatures were a fluke (please leave me a comment and let me know!).  At any rate, these things were amazing!!  (And I don't even really care for peanut butter cups, that much!).  For those that don't like or are allergic to nuts, you can omit the PB cups and it'd be your classically delicious brownie.

Peanut Butter Cup Brownies
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Ingredients

• 1¼ cups (5 ounces) cake flour
• ½ teaspoon salt (omit if using salted  butter)
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• 6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped fine
• 12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into six 1-inch pieces
• 2¼ cups (15¾ ounces) sugar (reduce to 2 cups if using semi-sweet chocolate chips)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• ~10 regular sized Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, broken into bite size pieces

Directions

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Whisk to combine flour, salt, and baking powder in medium bowl; set aside.
3. Melt chocolate and butter in large heatproof bowl set over saucepan of almost-simmering water, stirring occasionally, until smooth. (Alternatively, in microwave, heat butter and chocolate in large microwave-safe bowl on high for 45 seconds, then stir and heat for 30 seconds more. Stir again, and, if necessary, repeat in 15-second increments; do not let chocolate burn.)
4. When chocolate mixture is completely smooth, remove bowl from saucepan and gradually whisk in sugar. Add eggs on at a time, whisking after each addition until thoroughly combined. Whisk in vanilla. Add flour mixture in three additions, folding with rubber spatula until batter is completely smooth and homogeneous.  Fold peanut butter cup pieces into batter.
5. Transfer batter to greased 9x13 pan; using spatula, spread batter into corners of pan and smooth surface. Sprinkle toasted nuts (if using) evenly over batter and bake until toothpick or wooden skewer inserted into center of brownies comes out with few moist crumbs attached, 30 to 35 minutes.  (You may need to test a couple spots just in case you hit a Reese Cup!  Too short will result in gooey fudgey brownies; too long will result in a dry cakey brownie.)
6. Cool brownies then cut into 2-inch squares and serve.

Source: Brownie base from Cook's Illustrated as seen on The Way the Cookie Cumbles; Image from Duncan Hines...mine looked yummier and more homemade lol!