I just barely saw this recipe in my recent Woman’s Day magazine and couldn’t wait to try it!  We love peanut butter cups at our house and combining them with brownies, caramel, bananas and whipping cream make them even better!

PEANUT BUTTER BROWNIE TRIFLE WITH BANANAS AND CARAMEL

17-20 oz pkg. brownie mix (plus required ingredients)
9 large peanut butter cups
1 cup heavy whipping cream
3 large bananas, sliced
6 Tbsp caramel sauce
6 Tbsp unsalted roasted peanuts, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven according to the brownie mix instructions.  Lightly coat an 8X8 inch square pan with cooking spray and then line with parchment paper.  Spray the parchment paper with cooking spray also.  (I did this, but I think if you sprayed the pan enough, you could probably skip the parchment paper.  It does make it easy to lift the brownies from the pan, but you will be cutting them up in small pieces for the trifle anyways, so it doesn’t matter if they come out perfectly!)  

Prepare the brownie batter according to package directions.  Place half the batter in the pan, and then top with peanut butter cups, gently pressing them down.  Cover the cups with the other half of the batter and bake according to package directions.  Cool.

Transfer the brownies to a cutting board and cut into 1/2 inch squares.  (The original directions said you only need about half the brownies, but use as much as you want!)

Beat the whipping cream with an electric mixer until medium-stiff peaks form.

To assemble the trifle, layer brownies, bananas, whipping cream and then caramel.  I did two layers of each and then sprinkled some of the peanuts on the top.  You can either make about 6 individual trifles or put all of the ingredients into a large trifle bowl.  Enjoy!