SAUCEPAN PEANUT BUTTER BROWNIES
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – Best Of The Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 212) [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition).]
Decades ago, when the Mills Bakery truck came through the neighborhood, and you wanted him to stop at your house, you’d put a card in the window, reading “Mills”. The assortment of freshly baked goodies was overwhelming. One of their specialties (and this goes back to the late 40s) was a chewy peanut butter bar that I was told was NOT baked. This is as close as I could come to the original.
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter or margarine (2 sticks)
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup dry-roasted peanuts, chopped
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
INSTRUCTIONS:
In large mixing bowl, combine butter, peanut butter, flour, vanilla and nuts, mixing thoroughly. Set aside. In a 1 ½-quart sauce pan combine sugar and water and cook, stirring constantly, until it comes to a boil. Turn heat to low or sufficient to keep mixture just below a boil, continuing to cook and stir to a “hard ball” stage (when a few drops of the syrup form a hard ball when dropped into a glass of very cold water or 250°F on a candy thermometer.)
Pour syrup slowly into flour mixture, beating it on medium speed with electric mixer until well combined. Stir until it thickens. Pour into a greased 11 x 7” baking pan (sometimes called a brownie pan.) Chill until set; then, cut into 24 small bars.
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