There's nothing quite like the nail-biting frenzy that the first encounter with your significant other's family can bring.

Will they like me?

Will they be nice? Funny? Quiet?

Rewind to last December. My boyfriend invited me to his family's Christmas party, where I would be meeting most of his relatives for the first time. Because I wasn't thinking straight, and I wanted to impress both him and his family, I volunteered to bring dessert. How hard could that be, right?

After a few hours of browsing through the Betty Crocker site (this was before I started religiously following dessert and food bloggers), I stumbled across a recipe for Chocolate Stuffed Peanut Butter Brownies that sounded easy and delicious. I decided to make two batches. One to bring to work the day before the party (so that coworkers could confirm that they were actually edible) and one for the actual party.

Aside from the madness of not having enough Reece's (I ended up cutting them in half), under cooking one batch, and destroying part of another batch by trying to cut into them too early, I think I did okay!

Both the coworkers and the family scraped the pan clean (even the pan that I thought was under baked)! To celebrate this momentous occasion, I blogged the recipe. Sadly, this was also the first time I blogged a recipe, so I had no idea what I was doing. The end result was a picture from their website and the instructions copied and pasted, straight from their site.  

So to kick start this blog, I decided that a do-over was in order. I made a few changes to the recipe (my notes in italics at the bottom), and took pictures along the way!

First, here's what you need:


Really, the most time consuming part of this recipe is removing the wrappers from the peanut butter cups.


Also, I found that help can be attained by bribing others with images of the finished product, as well as extra pb cups.

Now that that's taken care of, we mix the brown sugar, eggs, vanilla and peanut butter until combined.

*Tip: if you oil the measuring cup first, the peanut butter slides out like magic!


Once combined, add in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until just combined. It should look like this batter-y bowl of goodness:


These wouldn't be complete without chocolate! Mix in those chocolate and peanut butter chips!


Pour into a greased 13x9 pan. It'll look dicey, like there's not enough batter to go around, but once you smooth it out a bit, it's good to go!



Bake at 350 degrees (or at 325 if you're using one of those dark non-stick type pans). I'm always very cautious when it comes to cooking times. I would say 20-25 minutes, or until the edges are browned up a bit.


Pull it out of the oven and immediately (as in, do not pause to take pictures in various angles like I did) push the Reese's peanut butter cups into the brownie. Betty Crocker said 24 of them, but I wanted more bang for my buck, so I squished 35 of them (7x5) into the brownie.


Perfection. Let it cool for at least an hour. I know, it's hard. It smells great, it looks great, and your hand might have brushed a chocolate earlier, but I've learned the hard way that cutting into hot brownies is equivalent to brownies cracking, crumbling and falling apart.

Trust me, it's totally worth the wait...


Recipe, adapted from Betty Crocker:

• 1 cup packed brown sugar (I took out 1/3 cup of sugar because I thought it was too sweet last time)
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 35 mini Reece's peanut butter cups, unwrapped
• 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup peanut butter chips (I added these, just because)
  

Heat oven to 350 degrees (for non-stick or dark pans, heat to 325). Grease bottom and all sides of a 13x9 inch pan.

In a large bowl, beat brown sugar, butter, peanut butter, vanilla and eggs with electric mixer on medium or spoon, until well blended. Stir in flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir chocolate and peanut butter chips to the batter.
Spread in pan.

Bake 25 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately press candies in brownies, in 5 even rows of 7 candies each.
Cool completely, about an hour and a half. Cut into 7 columns by 5 rows, leaving a candy on each brownie.

Prep time: 15 minutes
Bake time: 25 minutes

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