Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownies

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I tried this last night and .... it was interesting. I used a moist Devil's food cake mix and libby pumpkin, as called for. Didn't have creamy peanut butter so tried it with chunky and almond milk (since that's what I had in the house).

The pros:
*Super moist texture
*Although it was different than expected, we kept eating it. (Wait, maybe that's a con?)

The cons:
*This is cake! My other half called me out on calling them brownies. "There's no brownie to this. It's cake." My friend who was here shook her head in agreement.
*My peanut butter topping failed. I used chunky peanut butter (it was all I had) and it didn't thin out to a consistency that I could "swirl". The more milk I added, the gummier the peanut butter got. Essentially I ended up with crumbly chunks of peanut butter on top of a pumpkin chocolate cake.
*Weird sensory experience. It smelled like pumpkin and tasted mildly like chocolate.

To be fair, I'm new to healthi-fying recipes and obviously prefer the straight up junk. But in the future I'll pass on the chocolate pumpkin cake with peanut butter droppings.... ahem... topping. :laugh:

I am going to try this but I will melt the peanut butter in the microwave and drizzle it on instead. Do you see any problem with that?

I wish I had tried it that way - it was an afterthought - "Oh, that might've worked better". There was no way I could've swirled what was going on! lol Good luck!

PS - I just pulled a piece out of the fridge and tried it. Honestly, it's not bad - just not what I'm used to. Other than the peanut butter problem, the pitfall is a labeling one. When I hear "peanut butter chocolate brownie", I think rich, dense, gooey goodness. Instead this has a very subtle chocolate flavor. I found myself wanting to eat more of it than one piece to be satisfied. I can promise, eating more of it to get a true chocolate fix wont work. You might want to try adding extra cocoa powder. If you can get your head around it being "chocolatey pumpkin cake" you're probably good to go.

I am going to try this but I will melt the peanut butter in the microwave and drizzle it on instead. Do you see any problem with that?

I wish I had tried it that way - it was an afterthought - "Oh, that might've worked better". There was no way I could've swirled what was going on! lol Good luck!

PS - I just pulled a piece out of the fridge and tried it. Honestly, it's not bad - just not what I'm used to. Other than the peanut butter problem, the pitfall is a labeling one. When I hear "peanut butter chocolate brownie", I think rich, dense, gooey goodness. Instead this has a very subtle chocolate flavor. I found myself wanting to eat more of it than one piece to be satisfied. I can promise, eating more of it to get a true chocolate fix wont work. You might want to try adding extra cocoa powder. If you can get your head around it being "chocolatey pumpkin cake" you're probably good to go.

LOL lucky for me "chocolately pumpkin cake" sounds equally good as chocolate brownies............. However when you do call it "chocolately pumpkin cake" the peanut butter doesn't sound as good as it does on chocolate brownies.

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Bump! Thanks

I just had another thought about why my peanut butter didn't mix well.... it was a natural PB without the transfats and hydrogenated oil. Maybe the fat / oil in regular PB (even reduced fat) helps it mix better?