Buckeye Brownies

Fudgy, cakey, or chewy, studded with nuts or swirled with marshmallow fluff—I love just about every variation of brownie imaginable. One of my favorite riffs on a classic brownie is this buckeye brownie recipe. They’re inspired by Ohio’s favorite candy, the buckeye: a classic treat made with a creamy peanut butter and confectioners' sugar filling that’s rolled and portioned into bite-sized balls, then chilled and partially dipped in chocolate. The treats are called buckeyes because they resemble the nut of the Ohio buckeye tree—the state tree of Ohio. (And the tree nuts, which, by the way, are poisonous, are so named because they resemble a deer's eye.) Buckeye candies are purposefully jaw-clenchingly sweet, rich, and SO good that we feel their flavor combination shouldn’t be limited to just candy. 

Here we reimagined buckeye candies into a dessert bar with a fudgy chocolate brownie base with a thick middle layer of a creamy sweetened peanut butter and and a top layer of dark chocolate ganache. They’re special enough for almost any celebration or even your next potluck. To create the best version possible, our test kitchen colleague Jasmine Smith whipped up batch after batch of buckeye brownies. Jasmine’s recipe nails every layer: an intense chocolatey brownie base, a smooth peanut butter filling, and a dark chocolate ganache topping. Here’s how to make them.

Tips for Making Buckeye Brownies

Use Dutch-processed cocoa powder in the brownies. For the most chocolatey and rich brownies possible, use a high quality Dutch-processed cocoa powder rather than natural cocoa powder. In her Dutch-processed cocoa powder taste test, Stella Parks explains that cocoa powder is the dry matter left behind after the oily cocoa butter is extracted from cocoa beans that have been fermented and roasted for maximum flavor. This powder is naturally acidic. Natural cocoa powder is sold as is, while Dutched cocoas include an additional step to neutralize that acidity (a process developed by a Dutch chemist, hence the name). Most Dutch-processed cocoas contain nearly twice the fat of natural styles, and often come from better quality beans. The result is a slightly alkaline cocoa powder that's higher in fat, lower in starch, and more aromatic all around, with a mahogany color and a flavor profile that emphasizes cocoa's darker, nuttier, earthier tones. 

The brands Droste and Valrhona Dutch cocoa powders are two excellent choices. If Dutch-processed cocoa powder is unavailable, most supermarkets will still carry a dark unsweetened cocoa powder that will work fine—your brownie layer will be a bit less rich, but still delicious.

Add coffee to the brownie mix. Jasmine found in her recipe testing that a little bit of strongly brewed coffee (just three tablespoons) whisked into the brownie batter goes a long way. You won’t taste coffee in the baked brownies, but the bitterness of coffee balances the sweetness of chocolate, keeping the brownies from becoming cloying. At the same time, coffee enhances the chocolate flavor, making it more complex and intense. Leftover strongly brewed drip coffee works well, or 1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso powder with three tablespoons of water also works well here.

Cream the butter and the peanut butter filling. Adequately creaming the butter with the peanut butter and confectioners' sugar with an electric mixer or stand mixer with a whisk attachment traps tiny air bubbles in the filling—something that would be very challenging to achieve and require a lot of arm strength if done by hand. Without proper whipping to aerate and lighten the filling, the butter and peanut butter would form an ultra-dense paste. Butter is best beaten when it’s at soft but cool room temperature—ideally 65ºF or 18ºC. At this temperature, butter is pliable enough to beat with the sugar.

Stick with a bittersweet chocolate bar for the best flavor. When preparing the brownie and ganache, don’t be tempted to swap in milk chocolate or any other chocolate with less than 70% cacao or you risk creating a dessert that's way too sweet and falls short on chocolatey flavor. The terms bittersweet and dark are often used interchangeably on packaging, so make sure to double check the chocolate is labeled somewhere between 70 to 75% cacao. Also skip the chocolate chips, which usually have ingredients to help them keep their shape that also prevent them from melting well into a ganache.

Refrigerate the brownies before slicing. Once layered and assembled, the bars need at least one hour in the refrigerator to achieve a firm and sliceable texture. If you try to remove the brownies from the pan without refrigerating them, the soft peanut butter filling will ooze out when trying to slice. I like to assemble the brownies and refrigerate them a day before serving them. Yes, it's hard to wait to eat them, but it's worth it!