Candy-Chunk Brownies

So we always buy Halloween candy with the hope that we will have kids come to the door, but we never have any visitors. I don’t know where kids in my town go for trick or treating, but it certainly isn’t my neighborhood. I guess they go to the mall where they can hit many stores in a short amount of time.

As a result, we have a lot of leftover candy. Several baking sites that I visit have given suggestions as to how to use up the candy. I figured the easiest thing to do was to cut the candy into chunks and add it to brownies. For this recipe I used chocolate bars, peanut butter cups and almond joy bars. I think most chocolate candy would work. We also had Kit Kats, but my husband didn’t think that those would work in the brownies. I think he just wanted to eat the Kit Kats.

This recipe is based on the recipe for fudgy brownies, since I like fudgy brownies more than cakey brownies. Cakey brownies are just never chocolately enough. You make these in a saucepan, so they are very simple and quick. Some of the candy kind of melts into the batter, which is quite nice. These are quite fudgy, and perhaps they could have baked just a couple minutes more. They were so sticky when I cut them, but they taste very good. The peanut butter cups stand out the most, where the chocolate bars and the almond joy just melted into the brownie.

¾ cup butter
2 cups sugar
1 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 eggs
1 cup flour
2 cups chopped candy bars

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 pan.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the sugar and stir to combine. Return the mixture to the head briefly, just until hot, but not to bubbling; it will become shiny looking as you stir it.

Remove from the heat and stir in the cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, and vanilla. Whisk in the eggs, stirring just until smooth, and then add the flour and the chopped candy, stirring again until smooth. Spread the batter in the prepared pan.

Bake for 30-32 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, or with just a tiny amount of crumb clinging to it. Allow the brownies to cool completely before cutting.

Recipe adapted from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion