Peanut Butter Chocolate Brookies are the perfect chocolate peanut butter bite!
I made these Peanut Butter Chocolate Brookies, Cookie Dough Brownies, Triple Chocolate Hazelnuts Marshmallow Crunch Bars and homemade Twix (Chocolate, Caramel and Shortbread) Bars. Those last two recipes are coming soon!
Yes, I know. I’m a little excessive.
I knew something I made had to have peanut butter in it, if I have learned anything about sending treats out to friends, family and coworkers, it is that peanut butter and chocolate make for the ultimate combination!
Finally before sitting down with my giant file of brownie recipes I had to narrow down exactly what I should make. You may think I am a bit crazy here, but my personal recipe files contain over 35,000 recipes I’ve collected over the years (And about 2000 that I’ve personally created or edited heavily) so deciding to make sweets was just the beginning.
Here is what I figured about fire fighters and what they would appreciate. From my extensive research (read: I watch Chicago Fire a lot) I surmised they do their own cooking and dishes. Originally I thought about making some pies or perhaps a giant cake, but then I realized this meant they’d have to do dishes. I’m not about to create extra work for them!
Enter the cookies and brownies section of my recipe files. I debated about it for a while and decided brownies > cookies. Why? They are way more substantial, stay fresh longer and one can be enough. I have never met a cookie I only wanted one of (That may not be true, my husband isn’t the greatest baker and I bet he could make a cookie I would only want one of. Ha!). 
So these brownies, now to actually get to the recipe, are really quite easy. The ingredient list can seem daunting but I was left with a single dirty glass bowl (I melted my butter in this bowl too to prevent an extra dirty dish), a whisk, a spatula and measuring spoons/cups. No stand mixer, no extra bowls.
Yes, I even made the separate layers in the same bowl! Look, you’re baking both layers together anyway (so no contamination issues here), and if you you use a spatula to clean out your bowl of 95% of the batter your peanut butter layer will NOT suffer for it.
The little things that help when you’re baking four ultimate, indulgent brownie and bar recipes in one afternoon with two kids running in circles around you!
Looking for more brookie recipes?
- Oreo Chunk Brookies
- Mint Chocolate Chip Brookies
Tools used in this Cookie Dough Brownies recipe:
9×13 Baking Pan – The straight edges and even cooking of this pan is ideal for bars and brownies.
Dark Chocolate Chips – My favorite dark chocolate chips, I keep them on hand in volume! More and more stores carry the brand now too, so when mine has a sale I buy 3 or 4 bags of every flavor. (Sometimes I can even get them for LESS than Nestle)
Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – This cocoa powder gives an amazing, dark, rich chocolate flavor. I also highly recommend the Trader Joe’s Brand of cocoa powder.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Brookies
Ingredients
Brownie Layer:
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter , melted
- 2 1/4 cups white sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
Peanut Butter Cookie Layer:
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 cup flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease or use baking spray on a 9x13 inch baking pan.
- In a large bowl add melted butter (let it cool for just a minute or so), sugar, eggs, and vanilla and whisk together until well combined.
- Add the cocoa powder and salt to the bowl and mix well.
- Add in the flour and chocolate chips and mix until just combined.
- Using a spatula, pour into the bottom of your pan and spread. (I scrape out as much as I can so I can just reuse the bowl for the peanut butter layer - yes laziness, but also they are going to be stacked on top of one another anyway, why create more mess?)
Bake for 20-25 minutes.
- Make the second layer while the first layer is cooking.
- Add the vegetable oil, sugar, egg, vanilla and peanut butter to a bowl and whisk well for about a minute.
- Add the flour, baking soda and salt and whisk until combined.
- Using a large spoon or your hands, drop chunks of peanut butter cookie dough gently over the brownie layer.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the dough is just set and not very jiggly.
- Cool completely before cutting.
The peanut butter cookies were very dry. Sort of came out like a crumble, even after I added about a quarter cup of oat milk.
Good stuff! I made these last night and everyone had seconds, even the peanut butter & chocolate skeptics!
How awesome! Love it!!
Good stuff! I made these last night and everyone had seconds, even the peanut butter & chocolate skeptics 🙂
Love it!! Keep turning those skeptics!!
“Brookies” just might be my new favorite word. I’m crazy about peanut butter and chocolate in pretty much any combination, so this recipe just got pinned. Can’t wait to try these!
Thanks for the pin! Enjoy!!
I made this recipe today and was wondering if a step was omitted from the directions. Initially, I spread the brownie mixture on the bottom of the pan with the cookie dough layer on top as directed. I baked it for the 25-30 time recommendation, but when slicing into bars after the pan was cool, I realized that while the cookie dough layer was baked, the brownie layer was runny and underdone. I threw out that batch, tried again, and this time baked the brownie layer on its own for 25 minutes, THEN added the cookie dough layer on top, and baked for an additional 25-30 minutes. That did the trick, and both layers were thoroughly baked without being burned or dried out. I’d recommend this additional step to anyone else who is trying the recipe for the first time. Once I changed the baking steps, the bars were delicious. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
Sorry this comment took so long to get to, it ended up in my spam filter somehow! I don’t even know how that slipped past me! Boiling once is plenty, I adjusted the recipe card. Thank you so much for letting me know! As soon as I saw your comment I retested it and I love your version. I’ve updated the recipe to reflect those steps. Thanks so much!
Tried this recipe last night…I ended up doing 1t salt in both the brownie and peanut butter batters because I prefer my brownies and cookies with a more complex flavor but that’s personal preference. I did find that the bake time was almost 3x the 25-30 mins in the recipe making it about an hour 15 mins total and I even upped the oven temp to 400 for the final 25 mins. I keep an oven thermometer so I’m pretty confident it’s accurate. Also, I use a good scale so I don’t think it’s a measurement issue either. They definitely needed to cool COMPLETELY before indulging-I was impatient and didn’t wait and they were so much better the next day so don’t make my mistake ? Thanks for the recipe!
These look and sound delicious! I began to make them and found an omission in the ingredient quantity list – in step 4, you mention baking powder but it’s not listed under the chocolate part ingredients so I was wondering how much baking powder I need to add to the brownie part. Thank you!
Sorry for the confusion! The baking powder was leftover from a trial but didn’t make the final recipe. You can safely leave it out, and the recipe has been fixed!
Where have brookies been my whole life?! And peanut butter and chocolate is my favorite combo! Pinning now!
What a wonderful idea, and the brownies look amazing!
I can’t even imagine having 35,000 recipes on file…I need to come over and bake with you sometime 🙂
Yes! My recipe file is like Monica’s photo album, cross indexed and perfectly categorized. After people, its the first thing I’d save in a fire! 😉
These brookies are so good looking! I would happily eat a few of these for my sweet treat at night! LOVE that combination of flavors – yum!
I’m sure they appreciated these so much! Seriously such a thoughtful thing to do. And these look amazing! PB and Chocolate is always a great idea!
Two of my favorite desserts & my favorite flavor combo in one delicious recipe! Yes, please. 🙂
Chocolate and peanut butter is one of my favorite flavor combinations. So decadent and dense and beautiful! I hope the firefighters loved these brookies! I know I would!
Indulgent is right! What a great combo of textures and flavor.
Oh my gosh, I wish I had these in front of me right now. I love brookies.
Loving this concept of the brownie and the cookie best combo =) Moist and crunchy wow I need one now
You can never have enough recipes that are peanut butter and chocolate!
How kind and thoughtful of you to take goodies to your firefighters! I’m sure they were thrilled to get their hands on goodies like these — they sound amazing with just the right amount of decadence!