Us Caroline’s obviously enjoy sweets, but the area where we display the most alarming lack of self control is in the “peanut butter/ chocolate” category.  We have posted a number of desserts with this combo such as our Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie, Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Cake, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chocolate Peanut Pretzel Brittle….the fact that there are quite a few more is making me wonder if we should ease up on the peanut butter chocolate desserts…..yeah, not going to happen.  These Peanut Butter Buckeye Brownies are a King Family Classic made originally from our matriarch Joyce King and then repeatedly enjoyed by our sister Kristin’s family and mine (CK 2.0) who can only make them on occasion because of the aforementioned lack of control around perfect peanut butter chocolate combo’s like this one.  If you also want to eat ALL of the peanut butter chocolate desserts maybe make these for a crowd, because they are insanely irresistible.

Brownie Layer (these are Kristin’s Brownies – more detailed instructions on that link):

1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 cup flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
Peanut Butter Layer:
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup butter (room temp or softened)
8 ounces creamy peanut butter (I find the Jiff/Skippy variety work best because they don’t separate, but you could try using all natural peanut butter if you’d like)

Chocolate Ganache Layer:
2 cups chocolate chips
10 tablespoons butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 – spray or butter a 9×13 pyrex dish.  Mix all the ingredients for the brownie layer and spread into your prepared pan.  Bake for about 23-26 minutes and let cool.
2.  For the peanut butter layer, mix the butter and peanut butter until well combined then mix in the powdered sugar until it’s all combined.  I use a stand mixer because this layer gets thick so it would be tough to mix by hand.  Spread on top of your brownie layer and try to even it out pushing it into the corners etc.  Put in the fridge to cool about an hour.
3.  To make the chocolate ganache layer (it’s not really ganache, but we are going to go ahead and call it that because we’re fancy) melt the butter and chocolate chips in a saucepan until totally combined then spread over the peanut butter layer.  It will harden as the chocolate cools.  Serve at room temperature.  Side note this dessert freezes nicely, just let it come up to room temp before serving.  Enjoy!