Peanut butter chocolate brownies

These are the best brownies ever.

Brownies with mini peanut butter cups added in, topped with peanut butter ganache.

It's really simple to put together: make the brownies, make the ganache (I used this peanut butter ganache recipe).  Wait for both to cool a bit after they are made and then pour the ganache over the brownies.

I pretty much never make a single batch of anything.  So I poured about half of the mixture into the 8x8 pan and then made the other half in mason jars to be frozen for later.  That's right, I like to stock my freezer with jarcakes containing various desserts. It seems to make people happy.

I made these brownies from scratch but I've also done this with a box mix and they are fantastic either way.

Chocolate Brownies (adapted from allrecipes.com)
1 cup of salted butter
1 ounce semi sweet chocolate chips
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
Mini peanut butter cups

Melt the chocolate and butter over low heat.  Remove from heat and stir in the sugar, then beat the eggs in one at a time.  Add the vanilla and then the flour.  Pour into a greased pan - I used an 8x8.  Add mini peanut butter cups to the mixture after it's already in the pan and don't worry about them being incorporated into the batter...they will settle as they bake.

Bake at 325 degrees and start checking them about 45 to 50 minutes (I bake them slow and low because they are thick; if you use a bigger pan you can bake at 350 and start checking them at about 25 minutes). They are done when a toothpick inserted about an inch from the edge comes out clean.  This gives nice dense edge pieces and really moist-falling-apart center pieces.