Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownie Bars

Welcome to 2021. We had sort of, um…an abrupt beginning to the New Year. After a punishing 2020 where the pandemic pretty much upended everything in our lives, a lot of us were looking forward to some stability, seasoned with some optimism about the virus, but things took a decidedly different turn in a direction not many of us could imagine. I stepped away from a few things which allowed me a little time to get my mojo back and regroup.

The lockdowns (plural) and the pause for the holidays allowed me to sort through stuff in my kitchen drawers and clear a path to sanity in my office to face-down that pesky end-of-the-year paperwork. I organized the desktop on my computer (a task I highly recommend tackling), changed my newsletter service, deleted a passive-aggressive comment (still not sure I understand the point of those…) that was taking up precious space in my head, retreated from the online world, lost a loved one, took a step toward overcoming yet another leak as the plumber assured me the plumbing store would have toilets back in stock by the end of January (I hope he was talking about 2021), and emotionally regrouped to begin what I’m sure will be a fabulous new year.

To kick things off, I have a few stacks of cookbooks I’ve been going through, and bookmarking, and one that I was particularly excited about was One Tin Bakes by my friend Edd Kimber. Because of Brexit, another hallmark (for lack of a better word…) of 2020, the book took a while to arrive from the United Kingdom, but I’m happy to report it’s been published in the U.S. and Australia, as well, so you won’t have to wait.

I’ve been finding myself drawn to single-subject books lately. Broad topics are fine, but I really like when an author takes a deep-dive into something, whether it be Central and Eastern European baking, cooking with beans, the cuisine of Russia, or a chicken soup manifesto. Edd’s book takes the tack of presenting an array of desserts that can be baked in one size tin, or baking pan, as we call them in the States.

That pan is a rectangular 9×13-inch (23x33cm) tin. Edd chose that size because it’s “…the most flexible, most multipurpose” baking pan. (If you have a different size pan, here’s a handy baking pan conversion chart.) Using his book, within that one basic pan (or tin), you can make Milk Chocolate Caramel Sheet Cake, Olive Oil Cherry Snack Cake, S’mores Bars, Sweet and Salty Rice Crispy Treats, Burnt Basque Cheesecake, a Blueberry and Stone Fruit Galette, and Chocolate Tahini Babka Buns. How handy is that?

I was especially attracted to his Peanut Butter “Brookies,” a brownie/peanut butter cookie hybrid that’s cut into bars. Rather than swirling the two flavors, Edd places one on top of the other, so they’re easier to keep track of.

Regarding peanut butter. A majority of the time when baking authors request that people use standard (commercial) peanut butter, it’s inevitable to get inquiries about swapping out natural peanut butter. First up; check out this article Choosy Noodles Choose Jif, on why commercial peanut butter is preferable for cooking.

Second: As much as I love natural peanut butter, and crunchy natural is definitely my choice for swiping on a piece of bread or toast, the picture above shows what happened I tried the dough with natural peanut butter. The dough so dry I had a hard time patting it evenly in the pan. If you want to know dry it was, if you look closely, you can make out some of my fingerprints in it.

Even if the fingerprints didn’t show up in the baked bars, my fingerprints left large ridges and ripples in the peanut butter layer since it was hard to get it smooth. Looking at them now, they’re kinda cool, but the texture wasn’t right, as Edd warned me would happen with natural peanut butter when I asked about which peanut butter to use.

Edd recommended standard, creamy peanut butter, so to get it right, I went to Marks & Spencer food store in Paris, which happily carries both natural and standard peanut butter. Abruptly, the doors of the shop in the Gare de l’Est were locked tight and signs said they were closed to conform to Covid-19 health measures, which has closed restaurants and cafés. But I was puzzled because food stores are considered essential businesses (including those that carry essentials like Stilton, crumpets, and cottage cheese) and have been allowed to remain open.

A friend who lives near another M&S store posted pictures of bare shelves in her local branch and suggested the Brexit was making it hard for them to keep their shelves stocked, so welcome to the new reality. But the good news is that when I used standard creamy peanut butter, the dough (above) was a lot more cooperative and easy to smooth into the pan.

I’ve done exhaustive tests on various peanut butters in baking and my conclusion is: Use what the author of the recipe says to do. And if you’re still not convinced, I splurged on that jar of Skippy creamy, which set me back five euros. And I had to do the walk of honte, carrying it from the “Américain” aisle, to the cashier at my local supermarché ; )

After a topsy-turvy year, it seemed right to make something that combined the best of America (brownies and peanut butter), some fraternity with my friends across the Channel (I miss you!), and a bit of French savoir-faire, as the bars went perfectly with little cups of café express, or to keep the peace, un café noir.