PB&C, or peanut butter and chocolate, is probably my favorite flavor profile. There is just something perfect about the flavors of a reeses peanut butter cup that I love to recreate in baked goods. So what better dessert to make for my birthday than peanut butter brownies with chocolate ganache?
I previously have made this recipe from Smitten Kitchen without changing a thing. This time, I decided I really wanted a traditional peanut butter cup flavor and switched over to milk chocolate for the chips and ganache. How could these not make for a good birthday dessert?
My recipe is slightly modified from Deb’s.
To make the brownies you will need:
1/2 pound unsalted butter (2 sticks) at room temperature or a little soft
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I used old school Jif- I actually think I prefer Skippy but Jif was on sale)
2 large eggs and 1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpous flour
1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips
pinch of salt
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9×13 baking pan.
Beat butter and sugar together until fluffy with an electric mixer on medium speed.
Beat in the peanut butter on high.
Add the eggs, yolk, salt, and vanilla and beat on high. I recommend cracking the eggs into a separate bowl first. That way if you drop some shell in the bowl, you can remove it before it ends up in the batter.
Reduce the mixer to low speed and slowly add in your flour. Pause to scrape sides of bowl and continue to mix until all flour is incorporated.
Stir in the chocolate chips.
Spread batter into pan, it will be thick.
Bake for 30-40 minutes. My brownies were done at 28 minutes. When you use a dark baking pan your baked goods may cook faster. Brownies are done when edges are browned and a knife or toothpick comes out clean.
Once the brownies are cooled (about 2 hours later), it is time to make the ganache! I used the recipe for Milk Chocolate Ganache from this cookbook I received as a wedding shower gift:
Usually I find ganache to be very easy to make. However, you need to be focused enough so that when you are mixing the chocolate with hot cream, your temperature is right and the ingredients blend well. If you don’t do this, you may end up with little fat droplets in your ganache (not so appetizing). After hearing the sad news on Friday, I was rushed and unfocussed so my ganache did not come out as well as I’d normally like. Retrospectively, I should have decided to start over once the ganache wasn’t right, but I was too impatient and went ahead with the batch I was making.
Ingredients for the Ganache:
10 ounces of milk chocolate chips or milk chocolate chopped (this is the type of thing where I would highly recommend weighing your ingredient)
1/2 cup (4 fluid ounces) heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons butter, softened
Directions:
As I said above, this is pretty straightforward, but requires patience.
Put chocolate into a heatproof bowl.
Heat cream in stove just until boiling.
Pour boiled cream over chocolate and whisk together until smooth. **
Stir in butter until completely mixed. Your final product should be smooth.
Now if you have a problem with your ganache like I did, you can try to fix it without starting over. The Lindt cookbook recommends chilling half of the ganache, heating the other half over a double boiler, and then combining. Since I wasn’t in a very patient mood I tried to just fix it by mixing the entire batch over a double boiler. It worked a little bit but I still had to pick out some leftover fat droplets.
Now, hopefully you have a nice and silky smooth ganache! Spread ganache over brownies.
Once you finish, chill the brownies in fridge for 2 hours or overnight. Ganache should harden.
Cut and enjoy! I recommend cutting off the edges before serving.
Notes:
**This is where I made my mistake. I thought that the lumps in my my melted chocolate were just air bubbles. They were actually fat droplets and were not going to get whisked away. At this point I should have started over with fresh ingredients!
I think next time I’d use chocolate chunks instead of chips in the batter, just seems like a better fit.
These are very similar to blondies in texture. They’d go well with a glass of milk!
If you use this ganache recipe, you will probably have extra. I bet you didn’t know that ganache is the base of making truffles! Just refrigerate excess for a couple of hours or overnight. Once chilled, scoop teaspoons worth of ganache and roll into balls. Now you have truffles!
You could even roll these in cocoa powder, jimmies (yes, I call them jimmies) or chopped almonds to dress them up.
Have you ever made a baking mistake because you were in a rush?
Keep It Sweet 