Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Bites (makes 72 brownie bites)

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. semisweet chocolate; finely chopped
• 1 cup butter; room temperature, cut into pieces
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 cup flour
• ¾ cup peanut butter chips
• Peanut Butter Frosting (recipe to follow)
• Hardening Chocolate Coating (recipe to follow)

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly grease mini cupcake pan.
2. Melt chocolate and butter together either over a double boiler or in the microwave. Stir until smooth and combined, then cool to lukewarm.
3. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Whisk in brown sugar until well blended. Then whisk in eggs, one at a time making sure each egg is well absorbed before adding the next one. Add flour and peanut butter chips at the same time and fold into batter until there are no more flour streaks.
4. Divide batter evenly into greased mini cupcake pan. They will rise slightly and bake up with a flat top. Baking mini brownies will require baking in 2 batches (36 at a time). Bake for 11-12 minutes each batch. When done, the tops will be slightly dry and crackled but extremely moist in the center.
5. Cool in pans for 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Pipe thick swirls of the Peanut Butter Frosting over the mini brownie bites; allow to harden slightly. Dip the frosting tops of the brownies into the chocolate coating. Let chocolate coating set before consuming.

Peanut Butter Frosting and Hardening Chocolate Coating after the jump…

Peanut Butter Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup smooth creamy peanut butter
• 4 ½ cups of icing sugar; divided
• ¼ cup milk (more for consistency)
• 1 ½ tsp. vanilla

1. Beat peanut butter. Add 2 cups of the icing sugar; beat constantly.
2. Add milk and vanilla.
3. Slowly beat in the rest of the icing sugar. The frosting will be very thick. Only add enough more milk to make it workable but you will still want it to be thick to sustain being dipped.

Hardening Chocolate Coating

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. melted margarine or oil (I suppose butter cold be used aka: my weapon of choice)
• 2 tbsp. cocoa
• 2 tbsp. hot water
• 1 cup icing sugar
• ½ tsp. vanilla

1. Combine the margarine, cocoa and hot water.
2. Blend in the icing sugar and vanilla. While dipping the brownies into the coating, the mixture may already start to harden. Either stir it up again or warm it slightly in the microwave.

*Recipe for the Brownie cupcakes taken and altered from A Baker’s Field Guide to Cupcakes