Maida Heatter has a recipe for peppermint brownies, with a layer of peppermint patties, that I often make as part of the Christmas repertoire. Al likes them. They have walnuts in them, which he doesn’t like so much, and trawling thru my recipes I found an alternate I’d clipped from the newspaper, with no nuts. Maida’s recipe has 5 eggs, 3 3/4 cups sugar, 8 oz. butter, and 8 oz. chocolate. The newspaper recipe is real similar, with 5 eggs, 3 cups of sugar, 24 oz. butter (3 sticks), and a cup of cocoa. Three sticks of butter seemed like way too much to me, so I compromised. And I fiddled around with the technique some, too – the newspaper recipe wanted you to soften the butter and beat it with the sugar; I melted less butter and mixed it with the cocoa.
Peppermint patty brownies
- 2 sticks of butter
- 1 cup of cocoa**
- 3 cups of white sugar
- 5 eggs
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 cups of white flour
- about 30 mini peppermint patties from a 20-oz. bag, unwrapped
Melt the butter, and mix it with the cocoa and one cup of the sugar. Break the eggs into a stand mixer bowl, and whip till they’re combined. Gradually add the sugar, and continue to beat until the mixture is very fluffy and lighter yellow in color. Add the salt, baking powder, and extracts. Remove the bowl from the mixer, and blend in the cocoa mixture using a rubber spatula. Fold in the flour. Spread the smaller half of the batter into a greased 13 x 9 x 2 baking pan. Arrange the peppermint patties in rows on top, and then spread the rest of the batter on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely before cutting, or the patties will squish.
**melted chocolate option: reduce the butter to 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup; 12 TBLS), and melt it with 6 oz. of unsweetened chocolate. Whip the eggs with ALL the sugar instead of just 2 cups. Be sure to cool melted butter and chocolate before folding it into the whipped eggs & sugar – I usually run a little cold water into the sink and just set the pan I melted the chocolate in there to cool while the eggs whip.
