White Chocolate Chip Oreo Brownies (Can we say sugar coma?)

A friend of mine was moving back home to Utah after being laid off and I learned his favorite cookies are Oreos. Sure, I could have just bought a bag of Oreos and left them at his door, but wouldn't you rather get a plate of homemade White Chocolate Chip Oreo brownies instead? I thought so.

This recipe is actually a culmination of a few recipes I have looked at. I think it is safe to say it is a Carrie Original! One recipe called for too much sugar and too many eggs, and another friend told me that he uses half white and half brown sugar in his brownies and they always taste amazing. (He also adds almond extract but this will have to be a different blog.)

I had a leftover bag of white chocolate chips in the pantry since making the peppermint bark back in December, and they stare back at me every time I go into the pantry, asking me to use them. Hence the use of white chocolate chips in the brownies.

Ingredients

* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1 cup butter
* 3 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/2 cup cocoa powder
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup mini-white chocolate chips (or regular chips chopped up)
* 20 crushed Oreo cookies (Leave it a little chunky so you can tell they are Oreos)

Cream sugar, butter and eggs, then add vanilla.
Mix dry ingredients (cocoa powder, flour, baking powder and salt) together then add slowly to wet ingredients. Add chips and cookies at the end.
Pour into a greased 9"x13" pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

First time making this, I used the whole white chocolate chips and they all sunk to the bottom! So it was brownies on a white chocolate crust. It tasted fine, just not what I wanted. Hence the reason for the mini-chips or chopped up regular ones.

After this concoction, Dean told me to lay off on baking sweets for awhile as we have quite a fair amount of sweets that need to be consumed before more is made.

Peanut Butter Crunch Bars

A few months back I was given the book '101 Things To Do With Chocolate' by Stephanie Ashcraft. Needing a sweet for church on Sunday, I decided on Peanut Butter Crunch Bars. Like most of the goodies I make, I try to use ingredients I already have in the pantry.

Peanut Butter Crunch Bars
1 box chocolate cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter (I used crunchy for texture)

topping:
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (can also use milk chocolate for a sweeter taste)
1/2 cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter
1 1/2 cups crispy rice cereal

I laugh a little when I look at this pic because it seems I'm promoting all these big name companies. It's just what I had on hand.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, mix together cake mix, eggs, and oil until dough forms. (It is a dense dough.) Stir in peanut butter. Spread dough evenly into a lightly greased 9 x 13-inch pan. Bake 18-20 minutes. Cool 20-25 minutes.

I used 2 8x8-inch pans and baked for 12-13 minutes.

For the topping, melt chocolate chips and peanut butter together in a saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat. (I put the chocolate chips into a microwave safe bowl and heated for 40 seconds. I added the peanut butter, mixed together and microwaved for an additional 30 seconds.) Fold cereal into melted chocolate sauce. (You want to fold cereal in order to prevent breaking it into tiny pieces.) Spread mixture evenly over bars. Cool completely and cut into bars. Makes 24 bars.


As I was measuring out the rice krispies, I poured 1 cup into the chocolate/peanut butter mixture and then measured the last half cup. After measuring and trying to be efficient, I closed up the box and forgot about the half cup of cereal. Not wanting to put it back into the box, I decided to sprinkle it on top of the bars and drizzled some chocolate syrup over the top to make it look nice. :-) Can't ever have too much chocolate.