After making some scrumptious caramel filled pumpkin pie spiced snickerdoodles yesterday, I realized something. As tasty as they were, I wanted chocolate. They held no interest for me. And after guiltily eating a few spoonfuls of nutella right out of the container, I decided I really needed to fix my need for a chocolate fix, ASAP. I had some Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses in my cupboard, waiting for some brilliant excuse to use them and so I started thinking about what they would go well with. Eventually, after not long, I decided what I really wanted was brownies. I took off on the search for a simple, yet rich brownie recipe, and came across Smitten Kitchen's My Favorite Brownie Recipe. They looked simple, I had everything, and I didn't even have to pull out the mixer. Win! Since I wanted to use the Kisses, I thought I would portion control them and make individual brownie bites in a mini muffin tin, and this way each one could have a lovely Kiss center. In 45 minutes start to finish, I was done, and enjoying rich, chocolately brownies that had a wonderful center that tasted like pumpkin pie cheesecake. Win, win, win.
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| Batter in the mini muffin tins with the inverted Kisses before baking. |
(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen's My Favorite Brownies)
Makes approx. 40 brownie bites
Ingredients:
- 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
- 1-1/3 cups granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 2/3 cup all purpose flour
- 40 Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses, unwrapped
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray two mini muffin tin pans with non-stick cooking spray.
- In a medium, microwave safe bowl, melt the butter and chocolate together, in 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until the chocolate and butter are melted and combined.
- Whisk in the sugar, and then the eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla and salt and whisk well to combine.
- Stir in flour with a spatula until combined.
- Using a 2 teaspoon cookie scoop, place a level scoop full of batter into each muffin tin cup. Press a Hershey's Kiss, pointed side down, into the center of each scoop of batter.
- Bake for 14-17 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the inner most brownie batter comes out with just a few crumbs, if any.
- Let cool in the pan for several minutes and then carefully use a knife to pop each brownie bite out of the pan.
