Buckeye Brownie Towers

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday and I decided to bake her an early present. She loves anything with chocolate and peanut butter, so these two ingredients were a must! I wanted to create something that was bite sized, not a cupcake, and elegant. Other than that, I had no ideas. I explored a few baking blogs and came across Baking with Basil's Brownie Buckeye Bites. Inspired by this recipe, here is my own take on the dessert!












BROWNIES
2/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup  unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
10 tbsp. butter (melted)
3 large eggs

PEANUT BUTTER FILLING
1/4 cup melted butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/3 cup graham cracker crumbs

GARNISH
Chopped Peanuts
Baking Chocolate for melting to create spiral topper and to dip the pretzels
Circle Pretzels

Preheat oven to 325 F degrees.

Combine the melted butter and cocoa powder. Melt the semisweet chocolate chips and add to the butter and cocoa powder. Add the oil, sugar, and eggs.

Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and mix by hand until just combined. Pour batter in parchment paper lined jelly roll pan. It is critical to line the pan with parchment!

Bake for 20 minutes.

Allow to cool and then place in refrigerator for 15 to 20 minutes. Use a small circular cookie cutter to cut out the tops and bottoms for the towers. I found it helpful to dip the cookie cutter in a bowl of ice water each time to prevent it from sticking to the brownie. My cookie cutter was about 1.25" in diameter, and this yielded enough tops and bottoms for 20 brownie towers.

Combine the melter butter and powdered sugar for the peanut butter filling. Use a food chopper to achieve fine graham cracker crumbs. Add graham cracker crumbs and peanut butter to mix. Press into wax paper lined 8x8 inch pan. Put in freezer and allow to chill for 15 minutes. Use the same cookie cutter used for brownies to cut circles of peanut butter filling. You can crumble up the extra scraps and sprinkle on the top of the brownie towers as I did for the brownie towers I made and photographed.

 Take one peanut butter circle and roll the edge in melted baking chocolate before rolling in chopped peanuts. Stack the completed peanut butter circle between two brownie circles. Take pretzel circles and dip in baking chocolate (you can also use white baking chocolate).Place the pretzel on the top of the brownie tower.

Melt additional baking chocolate and place in plastic bag with corner cut off. Squeeze onto wax paper in spiral design. Chill spirals for 20 minutes before peeling off wax paper and placing on top of completed towers.

Enjoy!