PEANUT BUTTER PRETZEL BROWNIES

It’s summer, and we’re back, bitchez. Because we have loads of free time, and our menfolk just loaded up with more baking supplies than our post-Senior Week bodies are prepared to deal with. (Sidenote: stop by H206 and eat our food. Please.)

You will need:

2 1/2 cups crushed pretzels

1 stick butter

1 box brownie mix and associated ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

a splash of milk (sorry, I made this up, I don’t know)

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

a cup of chocolate chips? no idea

First thing is pretzel crust. Crush pretzels and mix with 1 stick melted butter. Press into the bottom of a brownie pan and bake at 350 for like 7 minutes, until kinda crispy. Do not dump baked pretzels into the bottom of the oven, as this will fill the kitchen with smoke and put you at risk of setting off sprinklers the second night you’re in the apartment.

Crusing pretzels. Also, keep an eye out for our new blog: Cooking and Cleavage.

Pretzel crush. And more cleavage, cause Erin loves her friends.

While that’s hopefully not happening, mix up brownie mix. When the crust is done (not being scraped out of the bottom of your heated oven with a cheese grater and cookie sheet), pour brownie mix on top and bake for what your box suggests.

Definitely don't turn off the oven- that wastes time.

Now time for ganache! Put the last 4 ingredients in a microwave safe bowl, and heat for 30 seconds. Stir. Do another 30 seconds. Taste. Marvel. While brownies are warm, spread ganache on top and add toppings (chocolate chips, Reese’s pieces, pretzels). Refrigerate to set ganache, and cut with a plastic knife when cool.

MAN COOKING

Sunday Night Mouse Movies. The few, the proud, the greatest Henle tradition since not-being-written-up-ever. After a few SNMMs filled with female-baked pies, cookies, and assorted carboloaded, chocolate covered bars, the men decided to storm the kitchen. And by that I mean Phil showed up with peanut butter and Hershey's kisses and told us to GTFO the way. Bufe helped. Cause hobbits stick together.

And I speak with utmost uncertainty when I say it involved the following :

1 stick of butter (ya, we know)
1 cup peanut butter (go with low-fat if you wanna save yourself way more guilt than is proportional to how much fat you're actually saving)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
rittle bit vanilla
rittle bit baking soda / powder / whatever / you do you
2 tablespoons of milk
1 and 1/2 cups flour
teeny bit of salt


Get out your mixing bowl (in some cultures they call it a pasta pot), and mash the butter and peanut butter together with your mashed potatoe masher, because this is man cooking and you can. It will get stuck in the masher, but fear not, you're men, and YOU CAN HANDLE THIS. Get a fork. Behold:

Add both sugars, mix, then the egg and vanilla, mix again. Summon your sous chef, secure 2 more pots, don apron (its about to get man-messy) and glare in the direction of giggling women. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt, concentrating deeply on your pot. Look generally adorable.

"its all queer domestic bliss in the foreground... and crack den in the background" (copyright: Us, 2010)

Mix until you don't feel like mixing more. Compliment self on facial hair. Combine pots.

Roll into cookie dough balls, and to add a bit more fat & sparkle to Sunday Night Mouse Movies, roll in sugar. Cause why not. Men love sugar.

Bake for 9 minutes (Not eight to ten. Nine.) at 375 (again, depending on your apartment's cooking ability) until they look like cookies. With whatever Hershey's kisses you have left after being absolutely pillaged by the fat girls that live in the apartment, press immediately into warm cookies. Utter the phrase "MAN COOKING" several more times, snuggle up to your women, and commence SNMM.