Peanut butter swirl Oreo brownies

Oreos and brownies are a match made in heaven in my humble opinion. Imagine my sheer excitement when I realised that you could get strawberry cheesecake and peanut butter flavoured Oreos!! Honestly if you could have seen my face and heard my excited squeal, it would have made your day I promise! While I'm a huge fan of my previous brownie recipe. It is super rich and chocolatey due to the dark chocolate. So this time I tried a split with milk chocolate and it turned out really well.

Ingredients:- 

85g unsalted butter, cut into pieces, plus more for greasing baking tin 

40g cornflour 

30g unsweetened cocoa powder 

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

1/2 teaspoon fine salt 

340g chocolate (broken into squares) (150g dark and 190g of milk)

170g caster sugar 

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract 

3 medium eggs 

For topping... 

3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter 

A handful of broken Oreos 

Method:- 

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Lightly butter a 20cm by 30cm rectangular baking tin and line with grease-proof paper, leaving a 1 inch overhang on all sides. 

Combine the cornflour, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt. On the hob, gently melt the chocolate and butter. 

When the chocolate and butter have melted, remove pan from the heat and stir in sugar and vanilla. 

Making sure that the mixture has cooled ever so slightly (so as not to cook the eggs) stir in eggs, one at a time, until combined. 

Add cornflour, cocoa, cinnamon and salt mixture and stir until the luscious brownie batter is smooth and begins to pull away from sides. 

Pour the batter into your pre-greased and lined brownie tin and smooth over the top with a spatula. In a small microwaveable bowl heat the peanut butter for say 10 seconds in the microwave to loosen it up and enable a better blob and swirl action. 

You might need to keep testing the consistency of the spread, you want it slightly runny but not like water. Then blob using a teaspoon onto the brownie batter, and use a knife to swirl through. Then dot on top the Oreo biscuits and bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 30-35 minutes, rotating the tin halfway through.

Let cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Using paper overhang, lift brownie out of pan and cut into squares and enjoy warm with some vanilla ice cream - mmmmm!

Bounty bar cookies

Someone once said to me (Katie from work - I am looking at you!) that coconut is a bit like Marmite. You either love it or you hate it. Now I am firmly in the love it camp, which makes these cookies like little bites of coconutty heaven. It's a take on my usual cookie recipe but obviously with the addition of Bounty bars! 

Ingredients:-

150g salted butter, softened

80g light brown muscovado sugar

80g granulated sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg

225g plain flour

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

¼ tsp salt

4 bars of Bounty (big bars so you have 8 of the half bars)

Method:-

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

Add the butter and both sugars to a bowl and beat until creamy. I use a standalone mixer for this and beat, using the paddle attachment, for a good 2-3 minutes.

While waiting, chop the Bounty bars into small chunks and set aside.

Next add to the butter and sugar mix the vanilla extract and egg, and mix until combined.

Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt over the mixture and beat until the mixture magically becomes cookie dough. Add the chopped Bounty bars and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula.

Using a ice cream scoop (life changing in baking I tell you!), dollop mounds of the mixture, spaced well apart on the baking trays. 

Bake in the oven for 8–10 mins until golden brown on the edges and still slightly soft in the center.

Leave on the trays for a couple of minutes to firm up and then transfer to a cooling rack.

Depending on how scoopy I'm feeling, I tend to get on average 8-10 cookies from this recipe, they're quite the cookie, if you know what I mean! So if you prefer something smaller then absolutely go for it and use a teaspoon to scoop.

Enjoy!