Leftover Halloween Candy Cakey Brownies

Whatchya gonna do with all that junk...

Yes, I'm joining in on the plethora of halloween candy recipes flooding cooking blogs everywhere.  Please don't hate me.  If it's any consolation, I had the idea of these brownies before checking my e-mail on Thursday and seeing my inbox full of leftover halloween this and leftover halloween that.  Really, I did.  But after sinking my teeth into one of these bad boys there was no denying it- I had to share, regardless of the blogosphere overload. 

Now I'll be honest, we actually didn't buy any halloween candy for the little ones this year.  I learned my lesson last year after I anxiously prepared and ran off to the store, bought four big bags of candy, and we had no more than ten kids ring our doorbell that night.  Big. Fat. Bummer.  Apparently all the kids choose to go to the "good" neighborhoods.  Whatever.  More candy for me.  So this year we were the grumpy house.  The party poopers.  The house with the lights turned out and no one home :(

But that doesn't mean we don't already keep a stash of sweet stuff on hand at all times- thus allowing me to whip up a batch of my go-to brownie recipe studded with some candy of choice (this round I used chopped up peanut butter snickers, reese's, cookies and cream hershey's, and 100 grand).  For some crazy reason you can't really see all the little chunks of candy studded throughout as a lot of it sort of just melted its way into the bar during baking but let me tell you...you can definitely taste it- a touch of pb here, a hint of caramel there...a very sweet brownie. 

Leftover Halloween Candy Cakey Brownies

Makes one 8x8-inch pan

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Candy of choice, chopped (as much or as little as you'd like)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Melt butter and chocolate chips in small glass bowl (I used a liquid 2-cup glass pyrex) in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring with a wisk, until melted and well-blended.

In medium size bowl, using the same wisk, stir together eggs, vanilla, and brown sugar until mixed.  Stir in chocolate mixture.  Wisk in flour, baking powder, and salt until just combined.  Fold in candy pieces.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs. 

Chelsea Original :) 

(not sure of the origin of the brownie recipe- I have it scratched down on a little piece of paper)