Crush butter pretzels with a food processor until chopped but not pretzel dust. The more pieces of pretzel – the crunchier the balls will be. Mix creamy peanut butter, powdered sugar, butter and crushed pretzels until completely mixed.
Roll the peanut butter pretzel mixture into 1″ balls. (You are aiming for 28 balls.) I found it easier to roll the mixture if I chilled it for about 15 minutes. After all the balls are rolled, pop the plate of peanut butter balls in the freezer for about 20 minutes while you continue on with the rest of the recipe.
Make the Peanut Butter Pretzel Crust
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat the 1/3 cup peanut butter in the microwave for about 25 seconds to make it melty. Crush the pretzels in a food processor or however you like to crush pretzels. Any kind of pretzels will do but I recommend using crushed butter pretzels (you find them next to the regular pretzels and they are literally called “Synder Butter Pretzels”) for the recipe. I also recommend not crushing the pretzels to dust but keep some small pieces to keep the crust crunchy.
Mix the melty peanut butter, melted butter (melt in microwave), sugar and pretzel crumbs. Press into lightly greased 13×9 pan. Set aside pretzel crust and make the brownies.
Make the Brownie Batter
Make the brownies according to the package.
Remove the peanut butter pretzel balls from the freezer and evenly place all 28 balls on the pretzel crust. Even though I didn’t do it while making it this weekend, I would suggest flattening the tops of the balls to make them more of a fat saucer shape to help with the brownie coverage and spread them out a bit.
Evenly pour the brownie batter over the entire pan covering all the balls.
Bake the brownies at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until an inserted toothpick in the center comes out mostly clean.
Cool for as long as you can stand it before digging in. Take a fork to the pan, we won’t judge. Note: Adding a scoop vanilla ice cream to the brownies makes it that much better.
Notes
You can easily make homemade brownies if you'd like. The recipe would turn out just as good.
You can substitute regular pretzels for the butter pretzels with no problem.