The. Best. Brownies. Yet.

Man, do I have luck with brownies or what! Maybe it's because I am usually making them for something (family dinners, new neighbors, etc.) so I am more careful with them than I am with cookies. I just tend to make flat, crispy cookies, whereas all of my brownies (really just the red velvet and rocky road brownies) have turned out well! So these were a spontaneous brownie decision, which may have been my best one yet.

It was about 8:30pm when we decided we wanted brownies. The only decision was: caramel or peanut butter? There is something you should know about me. I don't often have fun cooking things around. Yes I have chocolate chips (and butterscotch and white chocolate), but that's it. Want caramel? Make it from scratch. So....it was probably best that we settled on peanut butter. (but I have a feeling caramel will be in my near baking future, because I am dying to try to try making it!)

I have a problem making brownies from scratch because they always seem to contain like three cubes of butter. And since I promised myself earlier this year that I wouldn't skimp on ingredients anymore, I just stay clear of these 3-cube recipes so I'm not tempted to use shortening or cut back or something. These brownies were rated the best on All Recipes, and they used normal amounts of ingredients so it sounded great! They really were very very good (true, not as dense or fudge-y as other brownies I've had, but they were perfect with the peanut butter and chocolate frosting I used).

Easy from-scratch brownies from All Recipes

The recipe for the frostings came from this recipe from Making Life Delicious. Oh man, was this a good recipe choice. I didn't put peanuts in the brownie batter (lazy!) and I didn't have reeses, but they were still rich and moist and amazing! Since I only made an 8x8 pan of brownies, I halved the peanut butter and chocolate frosting recipes (hurray, less butter!) but then I did add extra powdered sugar and milk to make it spread a bit further and also be fluffier. Overall, seriously. amazing. We had company over yesterday, and everyone had seconds on the brownies! (Which is even better for us, because then I don't have leftovers in the freezer tempting me every second of every day.)

Wow. Just looking at this picture makes me want to make these again!

Lessons learned: just use what the recipe calls for, it's worth it! And, when in doubt, use a smaller pan and make them thicker. This really wasn't learned in this recipe- it was from earlier this week when I made chocolate chip cookie bars. The idea was simple- make cookie dough, spread in pan, bake and cut into bars! However, I didn't have the jelly roll size pan the recipe called for, so I opted for a full cookie sheet rather than a 9x13. Big mistake. Dry, hard cookie bars instead of delicious and easy treat. So sad! Those, unfortunately, are now in my freezer, not even really tempting me, unless we crumble them over ice cream. Lesson learned- if it's a treat, don't try to skimp!

Oh, another lesson learned: don't try to make frostings from chocolate chips (especially not semi-sweet). This frosting was absolutely perfect, and it was just regular old buttercream with cocoa in it. I'm doing it this way from now on!