Chocolate stout-peanut butter cup-bacon brownies

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I'm not really sure what started the whole bacon thing.

I know it is thanks to the influence of my boyfriend, and I think Epic Mealtime was involved when I first started experimenting with bacon.  While I would never attempt to make most of the stuff created on those shows, candied bacon seemed feasible enough.  My first untraditional use of the meat was a batch of candied bacon covered in chocolate and cayenne pepper.  This was only the beginning of my bacon adventures, and my roommate is always shocked when I fry up bacon that is not going to be used in a dessert of some sort.

Bacon is one of my boyfriend's favorite things to eat, and my cooking creativity tends to come out most when I'm making meals for him.  Considering he lives about 5 hours away from me, I spend a lot of time planning out what to make him for the short we are together.  When I can add bacon, all the better!

And beer.  

While visiting him once, I had a craving to make brownies.  Since I was not in my own kitchen supplied with all the ingredients I would need to make them from scratch, I decided to buy a good ol' box of brownie mix and incorporate beer and bacon.  When I looked up beer-bacon brownies online to get an idea on how much of each to incorporate, I found recipes that used peanut butter cups too! The thought of chewy brownies with chunks of peanut butter cups and bacon and chocolate stout was too much to resist.

After unwrapping the peanut butter cups, I chilled them in the freezer for a few minutes to make for easier handling when chopping.  

Mmm, peanut butter and chocolate :D

Chocolate stout-peanut butter cup-bacon brownies

Ingredients:

1 box brownie mix/box recipe ingredients

1/3 cup chocolate stout

1 package bacon

6-10 peanut butter cups, chilled

Directions:

1) Pre-heat oven to 350.

2) Fry bacon to desired level of crispness.  Smother it in brown sugar while cooking if you'd like.  Let cool then chop into pieces.  Reserve bacon grease if you want to replace some of the box recipe oil with  it.

3) Prepare brownie batter as instructed on box (or make your own homemade batter) but use about half the oil called for.  Play around with the combination of bacon grease and oil.  Add chocolate stout.

4) Chop chilled peanut butter cups into pieces.

5) Fold bacon and peanut butter cup chunks into batter.  

6) Pour mixture into a greased pan and bake according to package directions.

Your leftover chocolate stout will pair nicely with a warm spoonful of brownie!