Every year, I do the same thing. We haven’t seen a trick or treater in these parts since the girls were small – we live out in the middle of nowhere, we have a rather long driveway, none of the neighbors have little kids anymore, and we don’t turn on the porch light.
I leave the porch light off mostly because of Riley, who is not fond of strangers. I can only imagine his reaction to seeing a person dressed up in a costume, with some kind of scary mask on. It would not be good.
Still – I like to be prepared, for even the most remote of possibilities, so sometime during the month of October, I pick up a bag of candy, “Just In Case“.
Just in case some foolhardy parent decides to brave the long, dark driveway of a total stranger, and brings their little urchins up onto our unlit porch to see if the unknown folk within have taken advantage of a pre-Halloween sale and have some candy on hand.
You can guess the outcome – just like every other year, I now have a bag of assorted little candy bars. It’s almost like I want to have leftover candy, isn’t it?
On the other hand, I am not a fan of milk chocolate, and now that Larry is retired, I can’t send them to work with him, so here they sit. Until I decided to make these Peanut Butter Cup Brownies that is. Turns out, I don’t mind even overly sweet milk chocolate one bit, if it is surrounded by rich dark fudgy brownies and topped with a slathering of creamy peanut butter frosting – go figure!
I have a feeling that you’ll find that you feel just the same, so here’s the recipe:

- About 6 snack size peanut cups [.6 oz each] unwrapped and cut in half
- 4 ounces butter, melted
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup Dutch process cocoa [like Hershey's Special Dark]
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoon soft butter
- ¼ cup natural peanut butter [the regular kind is fine]
- 2 cups 10x confectioner's sugar
- 2 tablespoons milk or half & half
- Preheat the oven to 350º and generously butter a 7 x 10 in pan [or 8 x 8]
- In a medium bowl, combine the melted butter and the sugar, stirring to mix well.
- Stir in the cocoa.
- Stir in the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla.
- In a smaller bowl, whisk together the flour, baking and salt.
- Stir the flour mixture into cocoa mixture, just until combined.
- Layer about ½ of the brownie batter in the prepared pan.
- Lay the peanut butter cup halves out evenly over the batter.
- Carefully spoon the remaining batter over the top, and gently spread in a even layer taking care not to dislodge the peanut butter cups. A small offset spatula comes in handy for this.
- Bake for about 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean, except for a few moist crumbs. [make sure you aren't hitting a peanut butter cup with the toothpick when you test - if you are, try another spot] Move to a cooling rack.
- Use a hand mixer to combine the butter and peanut butter.
- Carefully beat in 1 cup of the sugar, along with 1 tablespoon of the milk.
- Then, beat in the second cup of sugar, and the remaining milk, until very smooth and creamy. It should be of spreadable consistency - if not beat in another teaspoon or two of milk.
- Cool in the pan for 2 hours before spreading on the frosting. Cut into bars. Store tightly covered for up to 4 days - after that, refrigerate.
See – every bar has a little stripe of peanut butter cup peeking out, so you know what you have to look forward to!


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