Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Brownies

I put my daughter to bed tonight without a diaper. She's not potty trained yet. She's sleeping in her cousin's bed who we are house-sitting for. Is this wrong? It's not that I wanted to put her to bed with no diaper on, it's more that she ripped the diaper off and insisted that she go to bed "just plain". Kids. Anyways, she's just too cute to say no to all the time. Plus, what am I supposed to do when she repeatedly rips the diaper off? Say, "Now you can't go to bed unless you have on a diaper?" That would mean she could run around naked like a crazy person all night, which is just what she wants. So, no diaper it is. It's kind of experimental I suppose. At the worst I'll have to give an extra bath and do an extra load of laundry. Ahh well, anyways, now I'm making these chocolate peanut butter pretzel brownies.

I stole this recipe flat out from Joy the Baker. I love her (who doesn't?) and I visit her site on a daily basis. She has awesome ideas :). Anyways, hers might be prettier than mine, but mine are giant! That did not sound like as much of a redeeming quality in writing as it did in my head...yes, mine are giant due to giant pretzels and overbaked...but...they are still AMAZING. And I think next time, which will be soon, I will listen to my gut instead of my boyfriend's pretty mouth and make nutella brownies with or without pretzels. These brownies are wicked cool.

On a totally seperate but related note, Joy the Baker inspired me to do pretty things with my nails this week, and here are the results:

Yay! I feel girly. :)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Brownies

*Makes 9 large or 6 super-large brownies

For the brownies:
8 tbl (1 stick) salted butter
7 ounces (2 3.5 oz bars) good quality dark chocolate - 60% or more
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

For the peanut butter topping:
4 tbl salted butter, melted
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pretzels and coarse sea salt for topping

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare an 8x8 baking pan by buttering the entire thing, fitting it with parchment or wax paper to hang over on two sides, and buttering the parchment/wax paper. Set aside.

To make the brownies: In a medium saucepan over low heat (or if your inclined, a double boiler) heat the stick of butter and chocolate until just melted. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract and sugar. Meanwhile, whisk together the flour and baking powder in a seperate bowl. When the chocolate mixture has cooled enough, whisk in the eggs one at a time. Fold in the flour mixture and pour into the baking pan.

To make the peanut butter topping: Mix together all ingredients until smooth. Pour over the brownie batter and swirl around with a knife. Top with pretzels and coarse sea salt.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until just set and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with a few crumbs. Cool for an hour before removing from pan and slicing.

Recipe slightly adapted from Joy the Baker