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They may be plain but they’re far from basic. These brownies are the perfect fudgy texture, chocolatey & decadent without being too sickly sweet.
Brownies
This may come as a shock, but I’m not actually a massive chocolate lover! Brownies are one of those things that I neither love nor hate, but I almost always found far too rich and sickly sweet. If you’ve read my about page, you’ll see that my whole baking business came about after a coversation with my husband about starting a brownie business. A bold move for me as someone who’d never made a brownie until last year (AFTER coming up with the business plan), and as someone who didn’t particularly care for eating them either!
My first few attempts following other peoples recipes weren’t great. Then one batch, completely randomly, turned out INCREDIBLE. Fudgy, dense, not too sweet…
The problem was, I’d been tweaking little things every time I made them, usually more than one thing was done differently to the last batch. I tried to make them the same again, but couldn’t. So, I started making brownies like a mad woman, changing one thing at a time to see how it affected the results & making notes constantly. I tried different sugars, different quantities of things, combining the ingredients in different orders, different brands of chocolate, even the temperature of the eggs! You name it, I tried it.
After what felt like 1395734 batches of brownies, I FINALLY cracked it and these absolute beauties were born. Dense & fudgy yet melt in the mouth! The edges come out chewy, not cakey & dry!
Be The Favourite Relative…
I spent so long perfecting these brownies, so you don’t have to. Bake these for your loved ones, and you’ll quickly become the family favourite!
They great to cut into bitesize pieces and served with dipping sauces at a get together (think white chocolate sauce, biscoff, caramel…) They also make a great gift, put them in a pretty box, top each one with something different and make the most indulgent pick & mix brownie box!
Ingredients & Ingredient Alternatives
- Dark Chocolate – Use whichever dark chocolate you prefer, the darker it is, the less sweet the finished brownie. I personally don’t like using milk chocolate as the brownie is too sweet & doesn’t firm up enough. I personally find the cheap Ms Molly’s from Tesco works brilliantly, it’s dark enough that it’s not overly sweet, but not so dark that it’s bitter. It’s also a lot more budget friendly!
- Butter – Block butter is what you need. Margerine or baking spread just doesn’t firm up enough when the brownie cools. I personally prefer salted as I find it just brings out the chocolate flavour more but unsalted is absolutely fine too!
- Eggs – I always use standard medium chicken eggs in my recipes unless stated otherwise. Room temperature for the brownies!
- Caster Sugar – Granulated is fine instead of caster but I find it has a tendency to sometimes make the finished brownie a little grainy. Also, with caster sugar you’ll find it far easier to achieve that beautiful shiny, crackly crust on top! If it’s all you have, you can always blitz it up for a couple of seconds in a food processor to make it a little finer!
- Brown Sugar – You want the soft light brown kind. The one that is sort of compressed in a bag, almost like wet sand texture!
- Cocoa Powder – I had the best results with Tesco own brand, but I did try Dr Oetker & Cadbury Bournville too. Dr Oetker was lovely too but far more expensive for very little difference to the finished product. Bournville was fine but produced paler brownies with less depth to the chocolate flavour.
Topping/Decoration
You can top these brownies with literally anything you fancy! Or eat them plain, entirely up to you!
They’re also fantastic popped in the microwave for a few seconds to warm up and served with a dollop of creamy vanilla ice cream!
Basic Brownies
Ingredients
- 300 g Dark Chocolate
- 300 g Block Butter – I use salted, unsalted is fine
- 4 Medium Eggs – Room temperature
- 210 g Caster Sugar
- 200 g Soft Light Brown Sugar
- 140 g Plain Flour
- 75 g Cocoa Powder
Instructions
- Line a 9 x 12" baking tin & pre-heat your oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas mark 4
- Break up the dark chocolate & cube the butter. Melt in a bowl together. Mix thoroughly, scraping down the sides. Be careful not to overheat this mixture. Set aside to cool slightly.
- Add your sugar and eggs to a bowl and whisk together for 8 minutes, until thick and creamy. A stand mixer with a balloon whisk attachment works best but a normal electric whisk will work too, it may just take longer.
- Pour the chocolate mixture into the eggs & sugar. Gently fold in until completely combined. Make sure to keep scraping the edges down.
- Sift in the flour & cocoa powder. Fold in gently, again making sure to scrape the sides. Do not overmix at this stage, as soon as you see no flour, stop! Over-mixing will result in a cakey texture.
- Pour the mix into your lined tray and gently spread evenly.
- Pop them into your hot oven and cook for around 30-40 minutes. See my notes above for tipe on how to know if they're cooked.
- Remove the brownies from the oven and bang the tray firmly, straight down onto your kitchen counter (protect it with a tea towel if it's not heat resistant!) This will help create that gorgeous dense texture.
- After 5 minutes,you can gently press down all of the edges with something flat if you prefer a more even thickness (perfect if you plan to decorate them!) I use a fondant smoothing tool.
- Leave the brownie in the tray to cool. Do not be tempted to try and remove or cut it yet, it WILL break!
- After about an hour or 2, pop the whole tray into the fridge. Once completely cold (after another couple of hours), remove from the tray.
- You can portion & eat now! If you can resist, clingfilm tightly & pop them back in the fridge overnight and they'll get even more fudgy.
- When they're straight out of the fridge they're easiest to cut neatly. They will feel rock hard, but trust the process, they'll be gorgeously fudgy once they're back to room temperature!
Notes
- I used this 9 x 12 tray for my brownies
- Can be stored on the counter for 3-5 days. Best stored in the fridge. Allow to come to room temp before eating!
- They also freeze really well, for up to 3 months. Just make sure to wrap them really tightly with baking paper and then cling film. To defrost, unwrap them completely and leave at room temperature for a few hours.
- If you struggle to get it out of the tin, carefully wiggle it out, holding onto the edges of the baking paper. You could also fold a strip of paper/foil and put it in the tin before lining it, with the edges overhanging. You could then lift it out using this as a sort of handle.
- Cooking time will vary depending on your oven. I recommend getting an oven thermometer to check internal temperature before baking as a lot of domestic ovens can be quite far out.
- Cutting straight from the fridge will give lovely clean edges!
- If you ever have an issue with the fat separating out (usually looks like little white dots all over the bottom of the brownie) this could be a couple of things. Make sure you don’t overheat the chocolate & butter mix when melting, and also make sure you mix really thoroughly, scraping the sides of the bowl down as you go.
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