Peppermint Patty Brownies - total time 1 hour

Happy Valentine's Day!  I hope everyone had a great day celebrating with the loved ones in your life.  We don't really do a lot for V-day, but I did want to acknowledge the holiday with a little chocolate!  

Confession, I have never made brownies from scratch.  I have always bought the box mix, added the eggs and oil, and that was pretty much it.  So when I was looking through different brownie recipes to come up with this one I was surprised at how different the process was from making cake.  I figured it would be pretty similar since a brownie seems like a dense cake.  It is not that it is necessarily hard or time consuming, just different than expected.  

Any way, I love peppermint patties, and chocolate and mint go together almost as well as chocolate and peanut butter.  So I topped these fudgy brownies with a peppermint filling and a layer of dark chocolate for a brownie oh so decadent!  I colored the mint filling pink and used some heart sprinkles since it is Valentine's Day, but green, blue, or red coloring would work too for other holidays.

1.75 cup dark chocolate chips, divided
.5 cup butter (1 stick)
.333 cup brown sugar
.666 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
.75 cup flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder
.5 tsp salt

Peppermint Filling
2 tbsp cream
1 tbsp butter
1.5 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp peppermint extract
2 drops food coloring (pink, red, or green)

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Melt .75 cup chocolate chips, butter, and brown sugar in double boiler.  Once melted, add sugar and combine.
2.  Transfer chocolate to mixing bowl and allow to cool (10 minutes).  Add eggs and vanilla and whisk together.  Fold in salt, cocoa powder, and flour.  Transfer to baking dish lined with parchment paper.  Bake for 15 minutes.
3.  While brownie is baking, combine cream, tbsp butter, peppermint extract, and powdered sugar together. Once to desire consistency, add food coloring.  Flatten minty layer with rolling pin.
4.  Allow brownie to cool.  Once cooled, add layer of minty filling, then top with melted chocolate.  Add sprinkles if desired and then cool in fridge to set chocolate.