Brownie Surprise

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Brownies
1/2 c. Unsalted butter, melted
3/4 c. Sugar
2 Eggs
1/2 c. Whole wheat flour
1/3 c. Unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1 tsp Vanilla extract

Surprise
1/3 c. All natural peanut butter, no sugar/salt added
1/4 c. Confectioners' sugar
1/4 c. Crushed graham cracker
1/2 tsp Salt

12 Rolo candies (not the minis)

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Preheat the oven to 350°F.  (Grease a mini-muffin pan if you are not using silicone bakeware.)

Mix together the peanut butter, sugar, graham cracker crumbs and salt to form a ball.  Refrigerate while you prepare the brownie batter.

Beat together the butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time, whisk well after each addition.  Add vanilla.

Mix the flour, cocoa powder and salt together.  Stir into the wet ingredients.  Whisk until the batter is smooth with no lumps.

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Fill 1/2 of the muffin cup with brownie batter and bring the batter up the sides. Take a little bit of the chilled peanut butter dough and roll into 3/4" balls. Place the ball in the center of the brownie batter and make sure the peanut butter ball is not touching the side of the muffin cup.  Cover the peanut butter ball with more brownie batter.

Bake for 10 min.  Allow the brownies to cool completely before removing them from the muffin pan.  The brownies are too soft for transfer when they are not.

Replace the peanut butter balls with the Rolo candies and repeat the last 2 steps.

My comments:

I recently came across two totally awesome food blogs: Two Peas and Their Pod and The Girl Who Ate Everything.  I've been stalking them on Blogger and Twitter, just to be sure I don't miss out on any new recipes.  The photos on their blogs can stimulate involuntary drooling on your keyboard, so you really shouldn't read them without wearing a bib.  What I love the most about these blogs is that their meals are often composed of very healthy and simple ingredients but their desserts are sinfully decadent.

This brownie surprise recipe was inspired by some of their recipes.  I mean, using Rolos in baked treats is just ingenious.  And the peanut butter?  It's such a simple idea, I don't know why I never thought of it before.  I couldn't decide which I wanted to try first, so I made both!

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Peanut Butter Brownie Cups:  I LOVE this peanut butter filling.  I use the same filling for my chocolate peanut cups.  It's a bit crunchy from the graham cracker crumbs and it has the perfect balance between sweet and salty.  It's sooooo good.  It takes an enormous amount of self-control not to eat it all while I make the peanut butter dough ball.  Because this is not overly sweet, it complemented my brownie recipe very well.  These are way better than my chocolate peanut butter cups.  This is definitely a keeper recipe.

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Rolo Brownie Cups: I searched for a long time for the regular size Rolos.  The mini-Rolos seem to be the new flavour, probably a marketing scam for people who think the Rolos are better for them because they are smaller.  Anyway, I am glad I persevere on my Rolo search because these were the perfect size for the brownie cups.  The caramel center were gooey when the brownies came out of the oven and it became chewy once they are cooled.  Both consistencies were great!!  My only complaint about these was that the extra chocolate from the Rolo candy made the brownie cup too rich for my liking.  My hubby LOVED it, but I think I prefered the peanut butter version.

I have to admit, after chowing down this batch of brownies, I'm a bit chocolated-out.  I know...I must be out of my mind to put something so sinful down in writing.  But don't worry, I'm already surfing the web for the next great chocolate treats and you bet these brownie cups will regularly make their appearances in my kitchen.  :)

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