Mini Brownie Bites with Bacon and Peanut Butter Chips

So, while I was looking at the website for 52 Weeks of Cooking, I found 52 Weeks of baking. I missed week 1, which was brownies, but week 2 (miniatures) is just starting, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and do miniature brownies. While I was thinking about this, I saw on Facebook that my friend Jackie Dee had made bacon brownies. Mmmm! I've made them before, and they are wonderful, so I figured I'd do that too. But then I was thinking, if I'm going to kind of cheat, and do two weeks in one, I need to really make it awesome, especially since I'm using a box of brownie mix that was in my cupboard. I made a quick trip to the store and wandered the baking ailse, and it hit me: Peanut butter chips! That would make it even more wonderful! So, I humbly present my doctored up box of brownie mix with bacon and peanut butter chips...

1 box of brownie mix (I used Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge), prepared as the box instructs
1 lb of bacon, cut into bits, and browned, then drained
1 10 oz bag of Reese's peanut butter chips

Cut your bacon into little pieces and fry until brown and crispy.

Drain the bacon on a plate lined with paper towels. While you're doing this, prepare the brownie mix according to the direction on the box.

Halfway through making these I decided to do the three ways. Plain from the box, with peanut butter chips, and with peanut butter chips and bacon. I think it will be neat to have all three for comparison.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray the mini muffin tin really well with cooking spray. Start spooning the mixture into the muffin tins. These are really tiny, so I used about a tablespoon for each. After making 8 regular brownies, I added about half the bag of peanut butter chips, then did 8 of these. Then I added the bacon and did 8 of those.

I baked them for about 22 minutes. I'm not really sure why, but they really didn't want to come out of the pan. I had to scrape them out with a knife. There are yummy, but not really pretty. Since I had such a hard time getting them out of the pan, I put the leftover batter into a small Pyrex dish and cooked that for about 25 minutes.

Mmmm!  Now I just wish I had some ice cream!