Brownie Fail (Can That Really Happen?!)

These would have tasted better if I wasn't so lazy.  It all started on Monday.  I was pretty blue on Monday.  Everyone had had a lovely 3-day weekend and I got to work 29 hours Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Happy Birthday America!  You suck.

So yeah.  Blue.  I finally got my day off and I was beat.  I slept 12 hours, tried to thin and weed the garden in temperatures above 90 that were steadily rising, was lucky enough to clean up not one, but two (two I tell you!) piles of dog throw-up,  and got to go to the eye doctor and take back my glasses for the second time (as they still weren't right).  Lucky lucky me.

To try and pull myself out of my wallowing I read other people's blogs.  The Londoner's was lovely, but made me feel like the commoner I truly am (I don't think I'd feel comfortable at a regatta EVER) and Cider with Rosie gave me an idea.  She posted about these lovely ooey-gooey white chocolate and caramel brownies!  But making some brownies from scratch was not something I was willing to do.  However, the idea of adding some caramel filled chocolate (aka - Ghiradelli squares!) to the middle of the batter was genius and my level of easy right now!!  So I pulled out some brownie mix and reached for the leftover Ghiradelli caramel squares we had from camping.  On a side note these squares are the perfect chocolate to use for S'Mores!  You can choose from a variety of flavors (caramel being my favorite), they fit perfectly on a graham cracker and they make a cheap, yummy camping treat something decadent with very little effort.  Turns out though I didn't have as many chocolates as I thought.  Really only enough for 1/3 of the pan.  So I used caramel down one row, hazelnut filled Ghiradelli squares for another row and just peanut butter for a third.  Things were looking up!

That's right!  I keep a Costco box of brownies in my pantry for emergencies!

It's as easy as one...

Two...

Three!

I tried to get a money shot of some gooey caramel, but alas, my brownies fell apart as they came out of the pan.  That means all the calories disappeared, right?

There really is caramel in there, I swear!

And some peanut butter...somewhere....

And it also turns out that peanut butter bakes up and doesn't stay creamy when cooked in dollops inside of brownie batter.  Who knew?  I thought it would be runny and thin like when I spread it on top of a warm english muffin and put jam on the top of that.  Usually I have to drop the jam on because the peanut butter is so runny.  Damn.  A PB & J muffie sounds good right now.  But I digress.

So long story short, you should make these brownies the next time you are craving something chocolate-y.  It made my blue day a bit more spring green, I wouldn't say it went all the way to sunny yellow, which was better than where I'd started.  And though I said they were a fail (lack of true caramel ooziness, peanut butter clumps) there really is no way to fail when you're making brownies.  :)

Look!  I fixed it!