Sasha's Kitchen: Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies

Chocolate is one of my favorite things in the world, whether it is pure dark chocolate (dark chocolate is my favorite), chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate cake or chocolate fudge.  Most of the time, I simply can't resist a bit of chocolate and any dessert that is chocolate based is usually pretty enticing. I love the combination of chocolate and peanut butter, which I have incorporated in other desserts in the past.

Last night, I tried out a new recipe for chocolate peanut butter brownies.  The recipe was based on a recipe from the Everything Chocolate Cookbook, a gift from my wonderful cousin Alicia. I revamped the recipe a bit to get the brownies the way I want them, and really used the recipe as an inspiration.  I might do a few things differently next time - these were excellent cake like brownies, but next time perhaps I will adjust the eggs to make them chewier. They were a hit with my husband, too and satisfied that chocolate craving.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies
Chocolate Portion
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
3/4 cup butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1 cup flour1 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs

Peanut Butter Portion
1/2 cup peanut butter (I used Brad's Organic Peanut Butter), which I am sure is named after my husband Brad :)
1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
2 T flour
3 T brown sugar
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 325. Grease a 8 inch brownie pan with PAM. Melt the chocolate and butter in the top of a double boiler over hot (not boiling) water, stirring continuously. Remove from the heat.

Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder.

Blend the sugar into the chocolate mixture.  Combine the vanilla and eggs. Sir in the dry ingredients until just lightly blended.

In a separate bowl, cream together the ingredients for the peanut butter portion.

Spread the chocolate batter in the pan and top with the peanut butter mixture.  Really, I should have not added all the chocolate at once (only about 3/4) and swirled the peanut butter portion and then added the remaining chocolate.  But I got a little over excited and added the chocolate all at once and then the peanut butter portion on top.  It still tasted pretty good, though.  Bake the brownies for 45 minutes  and allow to cool before cutting for about 30 minutes.