It's a Miracle!

I actually baked something! Thanks to Zach and Nina for your suggestions, I really appreciate it. Since Zach came up with a suggestion so quickly I went with his ideas and actually ended up (coincidentally) satisfying both of your requests. Zach suggested that I make some peanut butter brownies, but instead of making brownies I decided to make brownie cookies! The idea has crossed my mind before, but I never followed through until now. I decided to go with a little improvisation from a few recipes I found online and came up with the following:

Peanut Butter Brownie Cookies:

For the chocolate brownie batter:

• 12 ounces  bittersweet chocolate
• 1 stick butter (melted together with the bittersweet chocolate, either double broiler style or carefully in the microwave)
• 3 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• pinch salt
• 1 cup chocolate chips

For the peanut butter filling/topping:

• 3/4 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar

For the peanut butter, I basically did the same thing that I did for peanut butter cups except that I didn't really measure anything so these measurements are estimates. I tried a few different methods for combining the peanut butter mixture with the brownie batter. I tried spooning a little on top of a few cookies as well as putting some in the middle of the cookies (kind of like a cookie version of a peanut butter cup) and left two cookies without peanut butter (just to get the full effect of plain brownie cookies in case the peanut butter concoction baked funny).

Peanut butter dollops on top

The alternative - peanut butter innards

I had some batter and lots of peanut butter leftover, so a few days later I mixed the two together and baked the rest, which turned out a little dry but pretty good. Ultimately, I think that I prefer the cookies with the peanut butter on top.  My boyfriend prefers the cookies with the peanut butter inside, so I suppose it's up to the eater to decide. Not sure which method I would go with if I make these again.

This isn't a very good photo, but it is the only evidence I have of the peanut butter/brownie mix

What's next?
I might experiment with some whoopie pies (even though the name and concept has always freaked me out a little bit... I'm willing to bite the bullet so that I can become a real baker one day!) or chocolate/vanilla sandwich cookies (you might know them as Oreo cookies, but I'm trying not to sell out to a brand name here... especially because Oreos have hydrogenated oils in them, boo Nabisco!). Got an idea? Share it.