Brownies and a Road Trip

Goodness gracious, I'm in Alabama!  My dear boyfriend, Will, lives in LA (Lower Alabama), so I decided to have a visit and recharge my batteries.  After 6.5 hours, I made it to Dothan.  A little note: my boyfriend is not the boy in my picture.  That would be my lovely friend, Lummy, and it's such a cute picture of us.

Y'all, I love a good road trip.  Mostly it's because I like to make lists.  Do I always follow my lists?  No, but I thoroughly enjoy making them.  I also love to plan my snacks for the trip.  I like having savory and sweet bites on the road because you never know when you're going to crave one or the other.

This trip I decided to make my favorite peanut butter brownies.  I have a love affair with peanut butter, and is there anything better than a brownie?  Will would say, yes, there are many things better than brownies.  He's a weirdo though and doesn't like them, so really, that opinion doesn't count.  I would be fine eating a brownie every day for the rest of my life.  So there.

You need:

Wet ingredients- Sugar, brown sugar, peanut butter (obviously), butter, an egg, and vanilla extract

Dry ingredients- All-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, oats

These brownies could hardly be simpler to make.  Start off by pre-heating your oven to 350º.  In a large bowl, cream together the butter and both sugars.

See that butter on the side?  It needs to be scraped down so that it can be incorporated into the mixture.  A good rubber spatula will do the trick.

Next, add in the peanut butter, egg, baking soda, salt, and vanilla extract.

Blend those in, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Our flour and oats are the last to go in.  Instead of using a mixer (or hand mixer), stir these in with your spatula or spoon.  This will prevent the glutens in the flour from getting too excited and making your brownie tough.

With a few strokes, it'll turn into...

...this lovely batter!  It's a thick batter, almost closer to a cookie.  You can see the lovely oats throughout the batter.

Spread the batter into a greased pan (8x10 is suggested).

This is not an 8x10 pan.  It's a 9x9, so the batter was spread a little on the thin side.  No worries though, it will puff up nicely regardless.

Also, I can't leave well enough alone.  I decided to experiment a little and see what happens when I add Nutella to part of the brownies.

I scooped out about 2 teaspoons of the good stuff and melted it in the microwave.

Doesn't that look tasty?  I've been known to eat it straight out of the jar.  I'd ask you not to judge me, but even I judge me for that.  Anyhow, after I melted it, I swirled it in about half of the batter in the pan.

It was a little difficult to make marble-y since this is on the thick side.  It's also kind of ugly, but it's what's on the inside that counts.  So there.

Bake the brownies for about 20-25 minutes and you'll get this.

Slice 'em up...

See dem oats?  Yum.

The top brownie has the Nutella, and the bottom is plain.  Plain but delicious.  Of course, I tasted both in the name of...science.  The plain was nice and peanut butter-y as always.  The Nutella taste wasn't as strong as I would've liked.  The obvious solution is more cowbell Nutella, and I would mix it in when I add the peanut butter to the batter.

All in all, still a tasty brownie.  Nom.

Here's the recipe in an easy-to-follow format:

Peanut Butter Brownies- makes 16 brownies*
Courtesy of Charleston Receipts Repeats


1/2 c butter  (1 stick)
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1 egg
1/3 c peanut butter
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 c flour
1 c oats

• Preheat your oven to 350º
• Cream together butter and sugars
• Blend in egg, peanut butter, baking soda, salt, and vanilla extract
• Stir in flour and oats
• Spread in a greased 8x10 pan
• Bake 20-25 minutes
• EAT

*I hardly ever get as much yield out of a baking recipe as I'm supposed to.  I think CRR said it made 2 dozen or something like that.  I don't know about y'all, but I like a substantial brownie.  My little square pan made it easy to cut these into 16 evenly-sized noms.  Such is life.