Peanut Butter and Snickers Brownies and a Giveaway!

I decided to try yet another adaptation of my beloved best brownies in the whole wide world! And as I'm really into Snickers at the moment, I decided to pair it with peanut butter (naturally) and voila! - another great brownie. One thing I would do differently is chop up the Snickers into larger pieces as they disappeared in the baking process and people were surprised to learn that they contained any. I have recommended slicing them in the recipe below.

Speaking of baking (yup I know - as if we would be speaking of anything else on my BAKING blog ;p), I've got this great book 'Baking Bible' to give away. It is a great first baking book as it has recipes for EVERYTHING! From muffins to cakes and biscuits. It is a pretty hefty book too! Here is an excerpt from the Amazon blurb:

"There's a special joy that comes from creating home-baked treats. And there's nothing quite so satisfying as sharing them, fresh from the oven, with your friends and loved ones ... Boasting more than 470 recipes and 200 gorgeous colour photographs, it provides an outstanding resource for any kitchen. 'Baking Bible' has a recipe for every cake, pudding, tart, pie, slice and muffin you'll ever want to cook. There are loads of old-fashioned favourites, as well as plenty of inspired new ideas. Whether it's rich chocolate rum cake for a family birthday party, moist apricot and almond muffins for a weekend morning tea, sun-dried tomato and cheese slice for a lunchbox snack, or butterscotch date biscuits for the school fete, there's something here for every occasion"

For details of how to enter, see below the recipe. Good luck!

Ingredients
300g dark chocolate (At least 70% cocoa solids)
250g unsalted butter
4 x regular (58g) bars of Snickers, each bar sliced not too thinly, not too chunkily
175g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
325g caster sugar
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter (I only had crunchy at home as you can probably tell in the photos)

Here's how NOT to chop up your Snickers

1. Preheat oven to 170C/325F/Gas Mark 3
2. Grease and flour a 30x20cm baking tin
3. Break the dark chocolate into pieces and melt with the butter in a bain marie
4.  Combine the flour and baking powder in a bowl and set aside
5. When chocolate and butter is melted, remove from bain marie and stir in sugar and instant coffee granules
6. Stir in the eggs and vanilla essence
7. Fold in the flour
8. Lastly, fold in the Snickers pieces, give it one turn and pour mixture into the prepared tin. Do not stir too much as you don't want the chocolate to melt
9. Put your peanut butter in a microwaveable bowl and heat in the microwave for 30 seconds or until it  is soft and easy to stir. Using a spoon, drop dollops of peanut butter randomly on your brownie mixture until all the peanut butter is gone
10. Using a table knife, drag it lightly across the surface of your brownie batter marbling the peanut butter in with the brownie mixture
11. Bake in the oven for 25 - 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out pretty much clean
12. Allow to cool in the tin and then cut into squares

I'm giving away a copy of 'Baking Bible'. There is one mandatory way to enter and additional ways to gain entries into the giveaway (Tip: Each comment only counts as one entry so you're giving yourself more chances if you leave a different comment for each entry e.g. Answer the question in one comment. Tell me you're following me in a different comment etc)

CLOSING DATE - Midnight on FRIDAY 24TH FEBRUARY

Rules and How to Enter

• The giveaway is open to everyone with a UK mailing address
• For the mandatory way to enter, leave a comment telling me something you would like to bake
• For another entry, follow my blog using the Google Friend Connect 'Follow' button on the right of my blog. Leave a separate comment to tell me you have done this or that you're already following my blog
• For yet another entry, follow me on Twitter @vickii373 and leave a comment here to tell me you're following me on Twitter and your user name. Also leave me a comment if you're already following me on Twitter.

Good luck!