Brownies, 2 Ways

Have you ever been invited to someone’s place and have no idea what to bring? Last week I was invited to my cousin’s for a pool and lunch party. The night before I still didn’t know what I was going to bring. Sure, I could always stop by the coffee shop and pick up a box of donut holes (aka Timbits), but that would be the usual. I also didn’t want to trek 3 kids with me to the bakery to pick up anything. What did I have in my pantry that I wouldn’t have to make from scratch? Think, think, think…Yes! My no-fail brownie mix:

It only takes 45 minutes in the oven and all I needed to add was egg, water and oil. I wouldn’t be leaving for another 2 hours so this was perfect.

Well, I’ve been meaning to do something different to them, you know, dress them up a bit. I wanted to do something with peanut butter. With school out for the summer I knew there were going to be quite a few kiddies at the get-together and one of them has severe nut allergies. Hmmm,  I remember the mom saying that they still have peanut butter in the house so I knew that as long as the child didn’t ingest it, he was okay. So I decided on making 2 batches of brownies taking precautions that there would be no cross-contamination at all. I decided on a batch of marshmallow brownies and a batch of peanut butter banana brownies.

For the marshmallow brownies, in a medium mixing bowl, combine 1 egg, 1/3 C water and 1/3 C oil with 1 pouch of mix. Stir in 1.5 C miniature marshmallows and pour into 9 x 9 inch square pan.  Bake in 325 degree oven for 45 minutes.

For the peanut butter banana brownies: I had an unopened jar of natural peanut butter that had separated. I put the oil and the settled peanut butter (reserving 1/2 C of the peanut butter) into a food processor and whirred it until smooth. Because it needs to be refrigerated to prevent separation again, the peanut butter was somewhat runny so this was great for making these brownies. In a medium mixing bowl (I used the same bowl from the marshmallow batch so that I wouldn’t need to wash it twice), combine 1 egg, 1/3 C water and 1/3 C oil with 1 pouch of mix. Measure 1 C runny peanut butter from the food processor, 1 diced banana and the reserved peanut butter from the jar, in chunks, and stir. Pour into 9 x 9 inch square pan.  Bake in 325 degree oven for 45 minutes. Just in case of any cross-contamination issues and for peace of mind, I made sure that the peanut butter banana brownie was baked after the marshmallow batch was out of the oven and cooling.

Note: when making brownies, do NOT over mix. It will make for some very tough brownies. Definitely not a good thing.

The finished products:

Marshmallow Brownies

Peanut Butter Banana Brownies

I packed both pans of brownies and the kids into the minivan. Oh My Goodness! The smell of the peanut butter brownies was amazing and I almost pulled over to try it. When it came time to cutting into them all I could say was “Yummy!” as I tried to get the peanut buttery goodness off the roof of my mouth.  As for the marshmallow one, it was all right. Too sweet and ooey, gooey for my liking but the children were all for it.