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These Reese’s Peanut Butter cup brownies are outrageous in the best way: a chewy peanut butter cookie bottom, a whole layer of peanut butter cups, and a fudgy brownie top that settles down around everything as it bakes. They come together with refrigerated cookie dough and brownie mix, so you get all three layers without dragging out the mixer or dirtying every bowl in the kitchen. You’re going to love how rich, gooey, and Chocolate-peanut-butter packed they are.
Why You’ll Love It
- Three irresistible layers — chewy peanut butter cookie dough, creamy peanut butter cups, and fudgy brownies in every bite.
- Easy shortcut ingredients — refrigerated cookie dough and brownie mix keep prep simple.
- Rich and gooey — the peanut butter cups melt into creamy pockets beneath the brownie layer.
- Feeds a crowd — one pan makes plenty of rich, satisfying squares.
Ingredient Notes
Use the refrigerated peanut butter cookie dough that comes in the 16-ounce package. The kind you slice and bake works fine, too—you’ll just need to press all those little rounds together in the pan. It takes a minute. Put on a podcast and don’t make it a federal case.
For the Reese’s, this recipe uses 25 regular-size peanut butter cups, not the snack-size ones. Unwrapping them is the most tedious part, especially if you have one of those candy wrappers that tears into seventeen little strips. I’ve learned to unwrap them before I start mixing anything. Otherwise I wind up with brownie batter on my fingers and foil stuck to my sleeve. Every single time.
As for the brownie mix, choose a fudge brownie mix, the 18.3-ounce size. Use what you like. Just make sure you use the eggs, oil, and water listed here rather than blindly following the box directions. Brownie mixes vary a little, which is one of those small annoyances nobody warned us about when we grew up.
Ingredients
- 1 (16-ounce) package peanut butter cookie dough, refrigerated
- 25 regular-size Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, unwrapped—yes, all 25; it looks like a lot because it is
- 1 (18.3-ounce) package fudge brownie mix
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil or canola oil
- 3 tablespoons water
- Nonstick cooking spray, for the parchment-lined pan
Instructions
Heat your oven to 350°F. Line your baking dish with parchment paper, letting enough hang over the sides that you can lift the brownies out later. Give the parchment a light spritz with nonstick spray. I used to skip this part because I thought parchment was enough. Then I had to pry a brownie corner out with a butter knife while muttering words my children had definitely heard before. Spray it.
Press the peanut butter cookie dough evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan. If the dough is very cold and fighting you, let it sit on the counter for five or ten minutes. Don’t microwave it into a puddle—ask me how I know. You want one fairly even layer, but it doesn’t have to be engineered by NASA.
Arrange the unwrapped Reese’s cups over the cookie dough in flat, even rows. I usually start at one corner and make a little grid. There may be a tiny bit of space around the edges depending on your pan; that’s fine. The brownie batter will settle around them as it bakes.
In a medium bowl, stir together the fudge brownie mix, eggs, oil, and water until combined. No need to beat it to death. Just get rid of the dry pockets. The batter will be thick, which is normal. Brownie batter has always looked a little grumpy to me.
Spoon the brownie batter over the Reese’s cups and gently spread it into an even layer. Take your time here, because dragging a big scoop of batter across the candies can shove them all out of place. I use an offset spatula when I can find it, and a butter knife when I can’t—which is more often than I care to admit.
Bake according to the size of pan you’re using. In a 9-inch square pan, bake for about 45 minutes. An 8-inch square pan will take closer to 1 hour, while a 9-by-13-inch pan generally takes around 35 minutes. The center may still seem soft, especially with a fudgy brownie mix, and that is okay. These are supposed to be gooey, not drywall.
Set the pan on a wire rack and let the brownies cool completely before slicing. I actually prefer leaving them at room temperature overnight before cutting, because the layers settle and turn wonderfully dense and fudgy. That said, I almost never manage to wait overnight. A warm scoop from the corner with Vanilla ice cream is no kind of failure.
Variations
The classic version here is peanut butter cookie dough, Reese’s cups, and fudge brownies—don’t mess with a good thing unless you have a reason. Swap the Reese’s for Oreo cookies for a cookies-and-cream situation if peanut butter is not the goal. It’s good, though I maintain the peanut butter cups are better.
You can also use mini peanut butter cups if that’s what you have, arranging them closely across the dough. The finished bars won’t have those big dramatic peanut butter cup pockets, but they’ll still taste terrific.
Adding a layer of Nutter Butters along with the Reese’s is delicious but almost impossible to slice cleanly, and the center stays too soft for longer than I like. More is not always more. Except maybe with air conditioning.
Storage & Reheating
Keep leftover brownies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. They stay soft and fudgy, though they’re at their absolute best in the first couple of days. If your kitchen runs warm in the summer—as ours does when the afternoon sun hits that back window—you may want to keep them somewhere cool so the peanut butter cup layer doesn’t get overly melty.
For longer storage, freeze the cut brownies in an airtight container for up to three months. I like to put parchment between layers so they don’t freeze into one solid brownie brick. Thaw a square on the counter, or microwave it for just a few seconds if you want that warm, soft-center thing going on. Don’t overdo the microwave. The Reese’s layer gets lava-hot before the rest of the brownie does, and burnt tongues are not a festive dessert memory.
Final Notes
There are desserts you make because they’re elegant, and then there are desserts you make because everybody needs to sit down, hush for a minute, and eat something unapologetically chocolate-peanut-butter. These are firmly in the second category.
I think that’s why I keep coming back to them. They are a little silly, a little excessive, and very easy to put together when the day has been long. The kind of day when your phone won’t stop buzzing, the laundry is giving you the side-eye from the hallway, and somebody asks what’s for dessert as though you run a diner.
Make the brownies. Let them cool if you have the patience. Cut them small—well, smaller than you think, anyway—and put the kettle on. Then watch how quickly people wander into the kitchen. Funny how that happens.
Slutty Brownies
Ingredients
- 1 (16-ounce) package peanut butter cookie dough refrigerated
- 25 regular-size Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups unwrapped
- 1 (18.3-ounce) package fudge brownie mix
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil or canola oil
- 3 tablespoons water
- nonstick cooking spray for the parchment-lined pan
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 350°F, line a baking dish with parchment paper with enough overhang to lift the brownies out later, and lightly spray the parchment with nonstick cooking spray.
- Press the refrigerated peanut butter cookie dough evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan, letting it sit at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes first if it is very cold and difficult to press.
- Arrange the unwrapped Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups over the cookie dough in flat, even rows, leaving any small spaces around the edges as needed.
- In a medium bowl, stir together the fudge brownie mix, eggs, oil, and water until combined and no dry pockets remain; the batter will be thick.
- Spoon the brownie batter over the Reese’s cups and gently spread it into an even layer, taking care not to shove the candies out of place.
- Bake until the brownies are set but still fudgy, about 45 minutes for a 9-inch square pan, closer to 1 hour for an 8-inch square pan, or about 35 minutes for a 9-by-13-inch pan.
- Set the pan on a wire rack and let the brownies cool completely before slicing, or leave them at room temperature overnight for denser, fudgier layers.