Secrets from the Cookie Princess: Take 5 Brownies

You know I love a treat that packs a ton of flavor into one convenient package. And the Take 5 candy bar is one of those that jams together all kinds of stuff--chocolate, peanut butter, pretzels, peanuts and caramel. So take all of that and jam it into a fudgy brownie and now you're talking all kinds of amazing. A chewy brownie with an awesome combination of salty (pretzels, peanut butter and peanuts) and sweet (chocolate and caramel), these are by far one of my new favorites. I made these to take to a friend's house when he invited Dave and I over for dinner. I love making desserts for Ben because he literally loves everything I make. He's a cooks favorite taste tester and I know it's not out of obligation because he's not married to me. When I showed up with him and told him what I brought he actually asked if we should just skip dinner and have dessert. I like that kind of thinking.

If it's the second Monday of the month, it must be Secret Recipe Club reveal day! What's Secret Recipe Club? Each Monday a group of bloggers post a recipe they've made from another blogger's repertoire. Nobody knows who's featuring their blog until that day and it's a fun chance to visit new blogs and try something different. Visit some of the other bloggers in my group by checking out the blog hop at the bottom of this post. To learn more about Secret Recipe Club, click here. This month I had the pleasure to cook from Amy's blog at Amy's Cooking Adventures. Go say hi, I'll wait. Seriously, Amy and I are kindred spirits. I mean, she's got a while recipe category simply called Frosting, why wouldn't I want to be friends with her? So I'm sure you can appreciate that I had a tough time deciding what to make this month. For a second I thought I'd go savory and try her Mexican Pizza, but then I got out of that daydream and focused on more important things, like sweets. Would it be the Marshmallow Crunch Brownies? The Pretzel Crusted Fudge Topped Brownies? A basket full of Peanut Butter Banana Muffins? No, in the end I kept coming back to these Take 5 Brownies as the perfect dessert with loads of flavor and satisfying all the right notes. You can make these using either your favorite homemade brownie batter or simplified and use a boxed mix. I opted to use the same Fudgy Brownie recipe I used for these, these and these. In looking at Amy's recipe, though, I noticed she only made a Take 4 brownie, because she forgot to list the peanuts. So I added those in with the rest of the topping and even though there is so much going on here that these brownies can be a little complicated to cut, it's totally worth it. Every bite is salty, sweet and chocolatey, exactly what you want with a loaded brownie. These brownies are so amped up, you might have a hard time not shoving 2 or 10 into the hole in your face. Not that I did that. Or would be embarrassed if I did. Sometimes you just have to shovel multiple brownies in your mouth to know that you made them right. And now I've got Amy to thank for the awesome idea of piling more goodness on my chewy fudgy brownies for an amazing dessert experiences. Thanks Amy!

Take 5 Brownies

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup caramel bits
1 cup pretzel sticks, broken
3/4 cup peanuts
18 mini Reese's peanut butter cups, quartered

Melt butter and chocolate chips in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently. Remove from heat and whisk in both sugars. Allow to cool slightly, then whisk in eggs, one at a time, before whisking in vanilla. Stir in flour and salt.