I’ve been making lots of peanut butter recipes recently. Even more so than usual.
But I doubt you’re complaining.
I’m on vacation and make things that I know will turn out and that we like. This isn’t the time I want to experiment.
And I’ll never say no to peanut butter and chocolate, especially by way of dense, fudgy, rich, one-bowl brownies.
I have three main brownie base recipes on my site, that all others are derived from.
They’re each one-bowl, no-mixer recipes, that you can make in less than 5 minutes. As fast as using a boxed mix and they include:
Three eggs with melted chocolate in a 9×9 pan
Two eggs with cocoa powder in a 8×8 pan
Two eggs with cocoa powder in a 9×9 pan
I went for option two because the smaller the batch size, the better. I’m getting into a swimsuit daily.
Also, I tend not to keep chocolate bars on hand here in Aruba because they melt, whereas I always have cocoa powder stashed.
I melted the butter in the micro, whisked in the rest of the ingredients, and since I didn’t want to be bothered with having to frost them after baking, I swirled in peanut butter before baking.
I’m a big fan of peanut butter swirls and swirls in general. They’re a time-saver and they taste good. A win-win.
There are two major turnoffs for me with brownies, cakey and dry, and these are neither. They’re thick, dense, rich, ultra-fudgy, with zero traces of cakiness nor dryness.
Although cocoa powder sometimes gets a bad rap compared to melted chocolate, thousands of people love these cocoa powder brownies as I wrote about. You’ll change your mind about cocoa powder after trying them.
They’re not too sweet, very chocolaty, and I amp the chocolate intensity with a splash of coffee and espresso granules to bring out and enhance the chocolatiness, but they don’t make the brownies taste like coffee.
The peanut butter adds a touch of saltiness and balances the chocolate intensity.
And everything is better with peanut butter.
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Peanut Butter-Swirled Fudgy Brownies
Ingredients
- 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, 1 1/4 sticks, melted
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 2 tablespoons brewed coffee, leftover from the morning brew is fine, optional but recommend to enhance chocolate flavor and does not make brownies taste like coffee
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 2 tablespoons brewed coffee, leftover from the morning brew is fine, optional but recommend to enhance chocolate flavor and does not make brownies taste like coffee
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¾ cups plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process, I used Hershey’s natural
- 1 teaspoon instant espresso granules, optional but recommend to enhance chocolate flavor and does not make brownies taste like coffee
- ¼ teaspoon salt, optional and to taste
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup creamy peanut butter, melted
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8-by-8-inch baking pan with aluminum foil leaving overhang on the sides, spray with cooking spray; set aside.
- In a large, microwave-safe bowl, add the butter and heat on high power to melt, about 1 minute. Allow butter to cool momentarily so you don’t scramble the eggs.
- Add the eggs, sugars, optional coffee, vanilla, and whisk to combine.
- Add the cocoa powder, optional espresso granules, optional salt, and whisk to combine. If your cocoa powder is lumpy, it could take a couple minutes of vigorous whisking.
- Add the flour and stir until just combined, don’t overmix.
- Turn batter out into prepared pan; set aside.
- In a small microwave-safe bowl, add the peanut butter and heat on high power to melt, about 45 seconds.
- Drizzle peanut butter over batter to create swirls. To create the marbled pattern shown, drizzle peanut butter over batter in 5 wide, evenly spaced, parallel lines, each spanning the length of the pan. Like 5 rows of long train tracks. Rotate pan 90-degrees. With a toothpick, starting at the top of the pan, “draw” 4 or 5 evenly spaced lines through the peanut butter. You’re dragging the toothpick perpendicularly through the first set of lines to create the marbling.
- Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, or until done; don’t overbake. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out mostly clean, or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter. Allow brownies to cool in pan for about 1 hour before lifting out with foil overhang and slicing.
- Brownies will keep airtight at room temperature or refrigerator for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 6 months. I prefer to store them in the fridge and serve them slightly chilled.
- Adapted from The Ultimate Fudgy Caramel Brownies
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The Ultimate Fudgy Caramel Brownies
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My cookbook, Peanut Butter Comfort
What’s your favorite brownie recipe?
Darn you! lol You’ve got me craving giant slices of fudgy brownies now and there are none in sight!! Must remedy that asap
I still need your fruit leathers. Which I saw on FG and they’re killin’ it :)
I love a good brownie and I always forget about them until you post a recipe for one. I need to make some soon. Really soon.
I like that these use cocoa powder too, because I like the taste and texture that brownies made with melted chocolate have, but I am far too lazy to do the whole melting step. I know it is easy, but I’ve burnt far too much chocolate in the microwave in my days. It makes me want to cry, ruining chocolate.
I always melt my chocolate with the butter in a bowl in the micro. Takes 90 secs and I never have an issue. IF I am using bar chocolate, i.e. TJ’s or baking chocolate. Chocolate chips are much more finnicky so I rarely will melt them when I am going to make brownies, bars, cakes, etc that I need melted choc for. Every single brownie recipe in my cookbook starts off with about 6-8 oz chocolate + 1.5 sticks of butter, melted together. Makes a 9×9 pan of brownies. Stir in 3 eggs, 2 cup sugar, 1 c flour, that’s it. SO EASY. I know you wouldn’t make them b/c of the sugar but they’re not really ‘that’ sweet; it’s an adaptation of the Kraft/Baker’s Brand Chocolate brownie recipe I’ve tinkered with for 5 yrs. Long way to say, I don’t burn the chocolate and I don’t think you would either. But…in Aruba, chocolate melts at room temp! so I can’t keep it around easily so it’s cocoa powder to the rescue!
You had me at “one bowl” <3 haha
Ugghhh those look incredible…i have a weakness for chocolate and peanut butter!
You’re so good at the One Bowl Magical Goodness brownies and cookies. Very impressive!
Yum, these look good, I love fudgy brownies! I have a recipe on my site using both avocado and pumpkin to make fudgy brownies, I love brownies like this. :)
Avocado brownies – check. Me too https://www.averiecooks.com/2013/07/healthy-dark-fudgy-avocado-brownies.html LOVE the fudge factor
Pumpkin brownies – check, stay tuned, fall 2015 :)
I will never turn down a PB Chocolate brownie – like, EVER!! YUM!
Oh goodness, I am drooling over here! These brownies look divine, and I need one now!
I’m with you… brownies should never be cakey or dry! These look particularly fudgy and well, you can never go wrong adding peanut butter to brownies.
I just need to back up a Uhaul into my mouth and let you start shoving stuff in.
These look absolutely PERFECT, Averie! They look unbelievably moist and fudgy!
Alice Medrich’s brownies made a cocoa powder believer. I’m also a believer in groovy peanut butter swirls! :D
Yes she did for me too. I never!!! would have thought cocoa powder could be fudgy. I thought it would be…dry and bland. Boy, I was wrong!
Man, I really wish my boyfriend liked PB. I love it, but he can’t stand it, so I never make any of your PB recipes as I’d have to take them all down myself (not that I’m complaining…ok, well I guess I am!) Anyway, these look delicious.
These look amazing, Averie. I loved the Alice Medrich recipe you told me about, and I am positive that adding a swirl of peanut butter (or Nutella or Biscoff) would be phenomenal as well.
I am a believer of the Alice M brownies like you, and yes, a big swirl of PB or Nutella or Biscoff can do no wrong!
Totally agree about the whole cocoa powder vs. melted chocolate argument. I’ve had incredible chocolate-y desserts that only used powder. I think it all depends on the quality and recipe!
These brownies look superb. All that peanut butter goodness :)
These are derived from the Alice Medrich recipe, which Deb at Smitten Kitchen has posted about. And she has like 750+ comments on the post of people who’ve made them and are happy. So if it’s good enough for all those people, I figured it can’t be bad! And I use Hershey’s :)
My husband is getting tired of all the peanut butter goodies I’ve made lately. Personally, I think he’s crazy. ;) There can never be enough pb goodies around in my opinion!
So lovin’ these pb brownies! Fudgy…yes! PB…yes! I’m sold. :)
He would have died in my house the year I was writing my PB cookbook. Lol