Peanut butter brownies

 This is a recipe from the Australian Women's Weekly recipe book Biscuits, brownies & biscotti. I tweaked it a little bit to my taste. This is also the one recipe my mum cannot make as she simply can't comprehend that brownies should not be cooked until "the blade of the knife comes out clean". 

Ingredients

180g butter, chopped

150 very good quality dark chocolate, chopped

385g caster sugar - I used 370g granulated sugar instead. Granulated sugar gives a slightly more grainy/fudgy texture.

4 eggs, beaten lightly

1 tsp vanilla essence - I do not use that because I make my own vanilla sugar.

110 flour

2 tbsp self-raising flour

35 very good quality cocoa powder

50 very good quality dark chocolate, chopped - I sometimes use both dark and milk chocolate.

95g crunchy peanut butter - I never weigh it, I just add spoons of it until I'm happy with what I see. I use very good quality peanut butter with no added oil (especially palm oil!). If the peanut butter is unsalted, I add some salt to it before mixing it in the batter. It's the contrast between the sweetness of the chocolate and the saltiness of the crunchy peanut butter that makes this recipe work.

Do not replace the peanut butter with anything else (such as walnuts, hazelnuts, raspberries...) I tried and it does not work because the batter is too sweet. 

Try not to buy chocolate that contains too much sugar (definitely avoid Cadbury).

Method

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Butter and flour your cake tin. 

Melt the butter and chocolate in a very big sauce pan. When the mixture is smooth, leave it to cool for a bit.

Stir in the sugar, egg and vanilla essence if using. Add the flours, cocoa and extra chopped chocolate.

Pour the mixture into the tin, then add spoonfuls of peanut butter. Swirl through the chocolate with a knife. It's OK if there are big lumps of peanut butter here and there as it should not be smoothly combined.

The recipe book says the bake for 50 minutes, but to me, this is too long and the cake comes out dry. I bake for 30 minutes and check the batter: it's done when the blade of the knife comes out coated with soft crumbs of matter. If it's coated in liquid batter, I put it back for another 5 minutes, then check again.

When done, leave it to cool in the tin. Cut it in pieces when it has completely set.