Brownie Bars with Salted Peanut Butter Frosting

Experience has taught me (as well as other Americans, doubtless, whose childhoods included the joyful consumption of the classic Reese's Peanut Butter Cup) that peanut butter and chocolate are a match made in heaven. Imagine my delight when I discovered a recipe for a Cocoa Brownie with Salted Peanut Butter Frosting on the food blog Not Without Salt. Delight and utter fear, to be precise, knowing that while it was my destiny to make this brownie, I would have to summon all of my will power to avoid ravaging the finished product. Such a concern was allayed by my justification that I was making the dessert for a co-worker's barbecue. Unfortunately, I never did make it to that party....

I will probably never bake these brownies again, and that is the highest compliment I can give the author of the recipe. They are just too damn good to have lying around. Especially if, like myself, you are in peanut butter rehab. But enough babbling about my vices; read more about the brownie after the jump!




What makes this sinful treat so special is its recipe's crowning touch: the final sprinkling of Maldon Sea Salt atop the chocolatey bar's generous layer of peanut butter frosting. No, it is not the brownie's chocolate chips (my own modification to the original recipe) that make it send it over the edge; nor is it the peanut butter frosting, which takes peanut butter, an already calorically-dense spread and mixes it with actual butter and loads of refined sugar. It is the addition of the intense Maldon Sea Salt flakes that does this. This ingredient does add some refinement to an otherwise juvenile treat, but these pronounced snow-like flakes, despite being so small relative to the brownie's other components, add that extra dimension of flavor to the concoction's sweet-salt-fat composition, rendering it even more extraordinary and irresistible. This brownie, my friends, is a Lolita, for sure.

I pretty much followed the original recipe (linked above) with a few modifications, which I shall now impart. In addition to including chocolate chips in the brownie batter, I made the serendipitous error of adding 1 full cup of cocoa powder (rather than the 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp indicated in the recipe), which instead of proving disastrous, made the brownies more candy bar-like than cakey (and all the more sinful - *sigh*).

As for serving, I recommend, as one often does with chocolate bars, cooling the tray in the fridge before consuming the treats. This will allow the peanut butter frosting to set and give the brownie even more of a candy-bar mouthfeel.