Finally Friday: my brownie bites recipe
April 21, 2017
This recipe happening at all was the ultimate in exciting for me – I haven’t had the energy to bake a dessert in years!
When I do scrape together enough energy, it first going toward getting all my work done, then for making dinner, and getting JuggerBaby fed and settled into bed.
Last summer, well, last strawberry season more accurately, I managed to bake something tasty that’s nearly dessert-like (strawberry bread!) once every couple of weeks thanks to simplifying the recipe to the least possible required motion. There was no great reward for being efficient.
This one, though, was purely for me. Also for PiC, because I share with him, but mostly me.
It was both time intensive and energy intensive – I almost junked the plan altogether because of the very first step that seemed like way too much trouble. PiC was shocked when I hauled out the butter anyway and got cracking. There’s something to be said for being motivated by your cravings.
I’d share a photo but is anyone surprised that they were all devoured before I remembered to take one?
Ingredients
1/2 pound unsalted butter
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips, unless you want an extra dose of chocolatey goodness, in which case, add 6 ounces of chocolate chips
3 extra-large eggs
1 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 + 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1.5 cups chopped walnuts
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 12 x 18 x 1-inch baking sheet.
Melt together the butter, chocolate chips, and peanut butter in a medium bowl over simmering water. Allow to cool slightly.
In a large bowl, stir (no beating) together the eggs, vanilla, and sugar.
Stir the warm chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and allow to cool to room temperature. Take a half hour break, I’d say.
In a medium bowl, sift together 1/2 cup of flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to the cooled chocolate mixture. Toss the walnuts in a medium bowl with 1/4 cup of flour, add 6 ounces of chocolate chips here if you want this to be sweeter, then add them to the chocolate batter.
Pour into the muffin tin.
Bake for 20 minutes, rap the tin, then bake for about 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
Allow to cool thoroughly before digging one out and chowing down, with a glass of milk.
Afterthoughts
This recipe was adapted from Ina Garten’s recipe. In keeping with my cooking style, these actually aren’t outrageous at all because we’re old fuddy duddies who don’t want diabetes. But they’re delicious!
I cut the original recipe in half to make a dozen muffin-brownies, and replaced the sugar with peanut butter to reduce the straight sugar a little bit, so they’re not truly bite-size either but who’s complaining? Not I, said the brownie for breakfast eater.
I buttered the muffin tin but I forgot to flour it. BIG mistake. Never mind, these weren’t for show anyway, they were for eating!
I left out the coffee, 6 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate, and 3 ounces of unsweetened chocolate. It might have been a mistake but we weren’t missing anything. Next time I’d increase the peanut butter, though, that flavor would be awesome.
Brownie bites sound so delicious!
I have questions about the directions and ingredients. Did you use a standard muffin tin? The instructions say to butter and flour a baking sheet, but later you refer to a muffin tin, and since they’re “bites” I’m assuming that you used the latter.
I’m not sure if you’re recommending 8 oz of chocolate chips or 6 oz. That line is a bit confusing to me.
Finally, did you use peanut butter with sweetener? I love the combination of chocolate and peanut butter, but didn’t even think about it as sweetening the brownies since I only buy peanut butter without any sweetener in it. Maybe for this recipe I should reconsider. Your thoughts?
I’m trying to consume very few sweets that aren’t fruit these days, but I have to allow myself some yummies now and then. A small brownie bite may just do the trick. I bet these would freeze really well, and could be made in a mini-muffin tin (with a shorter baking time) for truly “bite-sized” treats.
Yes, the original recipe was to bake these a baking sheet, but I chose to use our standard cupcake tin (12 regular sized cupcakes/small muffins) instead. And I forgot to flour it. Whoops.
The original recipe also called for 8 oz PLUS another 6 oz of chocolate chips that you would add with the nuts at the end. I thought that was overkill for us.
I’d have to check the jar, we just use organic peanut butter from Trader Joe’s so I suppose it was more flavor than sweetening. But I think the revised recipe has plenty of sweetening already.
I hope that works for you in a small muffin tin, if you go mini size, I bet you’d end up with a batch of 24.
[…] Brownie peanut butter bites? Yes please. I really want them these days, by the bucketful. […]