Cooking Journey: Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies

 

Is this still considered a cooking journey when I'm baking?? I guess so. Life is a journey... Or something. 

As you can see by the photo and the title of this blog.. I've switched gears today from savoury to sweet. I, personally, am better at baking than I am at cooking, which is wild because cooking is said to be easier whereas baking is more of a science than an experience. Baking things gets me excited, that's when I feel most comfortable in the kitchen--when I'm baking sweets. HOWEVER, just because I enjoy it certainly doesn't mean everyone else does... I baked these brownies and it took FOUR days before anyone in my family even tried one. Ruthless. Anyway, less about them, more about me and my cooking struggles. 

I know brownies are SUPER easy to make from scratch but, it's just so damn convenient when all the ingredients are already measured out in a box.. I also, honestly, (don't kill me) don't hate boxed brownies?? Yikes! For real, there's about half a skazillion recipes that included boxed brownies but add modifications! Like cans of pop, icing to the batter, etc. There are tons of hacks online on how to really fancify boxed brownies. Today, that is not what we are doing. We are making tried and true brownies from REAL COCOA. 

Let's jump into this before I type anything else irrelevant. 

First thing this recipe asks you to do is melt the butter (as you can see in the first photo, the butter is liquified in the measuring cup.) The second step is adding the butter, vanilla extract and sugars to a bowl where I mixed the two together until everything was well combined. I then added both eggs, one at a time and whisked the mixture again until the eggs were fully combined. 

The next step, after mixing the wet ingredients, I mixed the dry. In a separate, medium-sized bowl, I added the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Once the dry ingredients are sifted together, slowly add the dry flour mixture to the wet ingredients (butter, sugar, vanilla mixture). Mix until combined, of course. 

 

Now that the mixture finally looks like brownie batter, it's time to add this sludge to the baking pan! I lined mine with parchment paper and gave it a little spray of PAM, just to ensure nothing sticks to the sides. Nothing more upsetting than a brownie that sticks to the inside of it's baking pan. 

Now, because these are peanut butter chocolate brownies, one of the final steps before shoving this into the oven is adding peanut butter, of course! This recipe says to add 6 tablespoons on top of the brownie in two rows of three. The recipe then instructs you to drag a knife through it to create that marbling effect/swirl pattern. I decided that 6 tablespoons of pb weren't enough and there simply wasn't enough chocolate in this brownie so, I went ahead and added some more gobs of pb and threw some chocolate chips on top. Why not? Live a little. 

 

It says to bake this slab for about 30-35 minutes, or until you can poke it with a toothpick and it comes out clean. I think I baked this brownie for 30 minutes and it was perfectly done. You wanna avoid over-baking your brownies as this will lead them to be very dry. 

Unfortunately, this is the only photo I took after the brownies came out of the oven. Truthfully, they didn't deserve any other photos. Full disclaimer: these did not turn out very well. I either should have added way more chocolate chips on top, or none at all, they added NOTHING to the final product. These brownies also lacked that "fudgey"-ness you always hope brownies will have. They lacked in flavour, too. They definitely tasted like peanut butter but they kind of tasted like a healthy chocolate square was trying to be peanut butter flavoured? I'm not sure if this was user-error or if the recipe just isn't mind-blowing, I'm not sure. These would be great for someone who, maybe, doesn't particularly like brownies or sweet things? Because these didn't taste much like brownies OR a "sweet treat." Very subpar. I was going to end this by saying, I won't be making these again but, I almost want to try one more time and see if it was my error the first time or if this recipe is just lacklustre. 

I also discovered brownies are NOT a hit in my household like cookies are. Duly noted. 

Here's a photo of the recipe I used: 

What's your favourite baked treat? Do you prefer sweet or savoury? Do you have a crowd-pleaser you like to make when friends come over? Let me know! 

Check out what I made last week for dinner! More blogs to come, keep an eye out! 

xo