Gooey PBJ Brownies
PBJ brownies are one of those ideas we had at like 11pm and couldn't stop thinking about until we made them. The combo of rich, gooey chocolate brownie with swirls of peanut butter and jammy raspberry is genuinely one of the best things we've ever pulled out of an oven. Every bite has that fudgy, dense texture you want from a proper brownie, with pockets of salty-sweet peanut butter and fruity jam cutting right through the chocolate. They take about 55 minutes start to finish and honestly, you'll be eating them warm off the tray before they've properly cooled. Make these tonight, you won't regret it.
Before You Start
- Preheat oven to 180°C
- Food processor (or large mixing bowl + electric beater)
- Square cake tin lined with parchment paper (with overhang)
- Spatula or metal spoon
Ingredients
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 ½ tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp broken peanuts
- 460g light Muscovado sugar
- 300g plain flour
- 160g cocoa powder
- 220ml water
- 220ml vegetable oil
- 50g dark chocolate
- 120g raspberry jam
- 80g raspberries
- 120g smooth peanut butter
Method
Line the cake tin
- Line the cake tin with the parchment paper, making sure there’s a good overhang (this excess will act as handles to remove the brownie from the tin when it comes out of the oven)
Make the brownie mix
- Add the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt to the food processor and whizz to combine
- Add 30g of the peanut butter, the water, oil and vanilla
- Blend until everything is well mixed (or put everything in a large mixing bowl and use an electric beater)
- Break the dark chocolate into squares and add it to the mixture
- Blend for another few seconds to mix in the chocolate
Pour the mix into the cake tin
- Use a spatula or metal spoon to empty the brownie mix into the cake tin and smooth it out so it goes all the way to the edges of the tin
- Use a spoon to pour and drag swirls of the remaining peanut butter and the jam randomly over the top of the brownie, decorating the whole top with long swirls of jam
- Push the raspberries and peanuts randomly into the mix
Bake the brownies
- Put the tin in the hot oven and bake for 45 minutes, until cooked but still squidgy in the middle (try to avoid the outsides drying out and getting too brown, you want to take it out sooner than you think – the middle will still be soft and maybe even wobbly, but it will cool down to a gooey perfection)
Serve and enjoy!
- Take the tin out of the oven and let it cool down almost to room temperature
- Use the parchment paper to lift the brownie out of the tin and put it on a chopping board (you may need a friend to help with this to ensure it doesn’t break in the middle)
- Cut into brownie portions and serve
Tips & Variations
- Nail the bake: We always pull these out when there's still a slight wobble in the very centre. They'll firm up as they cool and you'll get that perfect fudgy texture rather than a dry brownie.
- Switch up the jam: Raspberry is our go-to but strawberry or blackcurrant jam works brilliantly here too. Something with a bit of sharpness to balance the chocolate is the move.
- Smooth vs crunchy: We love smooth peanut butter in these because it swirls beautifully, but Ian's made them with crunchy before and the little bits of peanut throughout are honestly class.
Why This Works
The trick here is layering the peanut butter in two stages, some goes into the batter itself for that deep nutty flavour all the way through, and the rest gets dolloped on top with the jam so you get those gorgeous swirly pockets. The food processor does all the heavy lifting so the batter comes together super fast with no faff. What really makes these sing is not overbaking them, pull them out when the centre still has a little wobble and they'll set into the most gooey, fudgy squares as they cool.