I’m baaaack…..
Hey gang, I’m sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but its taken me a few weeks to get my schedule organized after starting my new job to where I’ve been able to put some time aside for Oui, Chef. It turns out that I started at America’s Test Kitchen at the very busiest time of year, with everyone scrambling to get ahead on their magazine or cookbook work before much of the month of May is lost to filming the ATK television series. As such, I’ve had the opportunity to be involved with some work that I otherwise might have had to wait months to try, and while in many ways its been cool, its also been a little overwhelming.
On Friday I was cooking food for the photo shoot of the September-October issue of Cook’s Illustrated which was both challenging and a little humbling. Challenging in that all the food had to be prepared to various points of completion at specific times so that the photographer and art director could get shots of a dish at various points of production, and when you’ve got 5 different dishes in the works it can get a little crazy. The humbling part came as I had a chance to work alongside REALLY talented artists shooting my food, and as a blogger who knows what it takes to get a half-way decent food shot, watching these folks work was something to behold, and pretty cool.
The little treat I’m sharing today is something I’ve been dreaming of ever since I made the TK Oreos with peanut butter filling. Long a junkie for Reese’s Cups and Funny Bones snack cakes, the combination of chocolate and peanut butter has always been one of my favorite flavor mash ups. For these brownies, I took Alice Medrich‘s all-cocoa beauties and swirled in a sweetened peanut butter cream to come up with a new way to enjoy these favorite tastes. They turned out killer, I hope you like them as much as we do!
Cheers – Steve
Ingredients
for the brownies:
- 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or dutch-process)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cold, large eggs
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour (unsifted, measure by stirring briefly, spooning into the measuring cup until it's heaped above the rim, then leveling it with a straight-edged knife or spatula)
- 2/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
for the peanut butter cream:
- 7 ounces peanut butter (creamy or chunky, as you wish)
- 1/4 stick of butter, room temperature
- 1 ounce of powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
for the peanut butter cream:
- Place all ingredients into a medium sized bowl and beat with a hand-mixer until fully incorporated, set aside.
for the brownies:
- Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and heat the oven to 325℉. Line the bottom and sides of a 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper or foil (or use a silicone pan, sprayed with baking spray like I did), leaving an overhang on two opposite sides.
- Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Stir from time to time until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger fairly quickly after dipping in to test. remove the bowl from the skillet and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot.
- Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. Stir in the nuts, if using. Spread evenly in the lined pan.
- Spoon the peanut butter mixture evenly across the top of the brownies, and using a paring knife, swirl into the brownie batter.
- Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter, 25-28 minutes (mine were perfectly done at 27 minutes). Let cool completely on a cooling rack.
- Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into 16 or 25 squares.