By Roy Stern from the ‘What’s cooking at Aseh Chayil?’ community cookbook
The idea of community cookbooks made its way to Israel with American immigrants. In the ‘What’s Cooking at Aseh Chayil’ community cookbook published to raise funds for the local elementary school in Efrat. The committee collected recipes in both Hebrew and English and the cookbook was published in both languages. It was a great way for olim from different backgrounds and native Israelis to share not just recipes, but to work together to raise money for their kid’s school using food as a conduit!
Roy Stern’s recipe that calls for peanut butter and chocolate chips would have been new to many Israelis as both chocolate chips and peanut butter were not pantry staples in Israel until the late 1990s.
I have replaced the original bittersweet chocolate chips with milk chocolate ones, but feel free to go back to the original.
- 190g (1 ½ cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 150g (¾ cup) white granulated sugar
- 150g (¾ cup) brown sugar
- 115g (½ cup) unsalted butter (or vegan alternative), melted and cooled
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 130g (½ cup) chunky peanut butter, room temperature
- 40g (¼ cup) honey roasted peanuts, chopped
- 170g (1 cup) milk chocolate chips
- Heat oven to 180℃ (350℉). Line a 20x30cm (9×13 inch) baking tray with two-piece of aluminum foil placed perpendicular to each other, with extra foil hanging over edges of the pan. Push foil into corners and up sides of the pan, smoothing foil flush to pan. Grease foil.
- In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, whisk sugars and melted butter until combined, add the eggs and vanilla into sugar mixture until combined. Whisk in peanut butter until combined. Using rubber spatula, fold in flour mixture until just combined. Fold in chopped peanuts.
- Transfer batter to prepared pan and smooth top. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Put in the oven for 3 minutes, remove and marbleize the melted chocolate chips on top. Bake for an additional 25-30 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached. rotating pan halfway through baking. Using foil overhang, remove brownies from pan. Cut into pieces before serving.
