Basic Brownies
These brownies are the perfect fudgy texture, chocolatey & decadent without being too sickly sweet.
Servings: 15
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.
