The Best Ever Fudge Brownies

When it comes to brownies, you either fall on #teamfudgey or #teamcakey. If you are the later, I’ll go ahead and save you some time and tell you this is not your brownie recipe. Although, if you are considering joining us here on team fudgey, go ahead and give these a try. You will never want another cake brownie as long as you live. If I haven’t already been clear, brownies are without a doubt my number one all-time favorite dessert. If you told me I could only eat one more dessert for the rest of my life, I’d say fine, as long as it was a warm, chocolatey, fudge brownie with vanilla ice cream on top. These brownies made with cocoa powder and semi-sweet chocolate chips have a deep, chocolate flavor, a thick crackly top and a dense, fudge center. I’m giving you fair warning, only make these if you are willing to say goodbye for good to boxed brownies because these are the best ever fudge brownies.

Brown Butter

Remember when we were all at home baking during the early pandemic days? I lived alone then, so my routine consisted of a few hours of work, walk the dog, facetime my mom, a few more hours of work, afternoon nap, bake, facetime my mom again. I have a deep love for the old line-up of Bon Appetit Test Kitchen video staff and followed along with their early pandemic at-home youtube series. One particular episode, Chris Morroco transformed boxed brownies with browned butter, so I also decided to transform boxed brownies with browned butter. Thus was born my love of browned butter in baked goods. This recipe would probably be good with regular melted butter, but the sublt nuttiness of the browned butter helps to balance the sweetness of the sugar and bitterness of the chocolate. To brown your butter, place a small saucepan over medium heat and add your butter. Allow it to fully melt and begin to brown, stiring occasionally. Your butter will become very foamy about 1 minute after it is fully melted. This is due to water evaporating from your butter. You will notice your butter begins to separate and there are little white flecks at the bottom of your pan. Those are the milk solids that begin to caramelize and give the delicious, deep flavor to the browned butter.

Hot chocolate

Now that our butter is nice and hot, let’s dump it over some chocolate, because what could be better than butter and chocolate?! When you do this, there are two important things to remember. 1. Use a glass or ceramic bowl. We don’t want anything to melt and we want to hold on to the heat from the butter. Glass and ceramic are much better than plastic at both of those things. 2. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT try to stir the melted butter with the chocolate. Be patient. Just pour the butter and walk away. We are going to let the heat from the butter do it’s thing and melt the chocolate. Let the butter and chocolate sit for 5 minutes while you go mix up the dry ingredients or scroll instagram or take a potty break or….I do not care. Just please, do not stir the butter and chocolate for 5 whole minutes.

Oh, fudge.

Now that our chocolate has had a chance to melt, you are free to stir it until it is silky smooth. Then we will add out cocoa powder. Don’t worry about sifting. Usually, when you add cocoa powder to a liquid it sort of clumps up and doesn’t mix well. However, due to the fat content of the butter and chocolate, after a minute or two of mixing, the cocoa powder will fully disolve into the chocolate and butter. Yum!

Brownie batter

It’s time to bring it all together, now. In a medium bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients with a fork. This helps to mix everything evenly, which is important for ingredients like baking powder, and eleminate any clumps. We don’t need to sift, because we don’t need any extra air in these brownies. Afterall, we are making the best ever FUDGE brownies, not cake brownies. Add the eggs and vanilla to make the base of the brownie batter. Now add in the chocolate and butter mixure and stir, stir, stir. I mean, don’t get crazy with it, but we do want the batter to be one solid color. You might think, oh, the swirls are so pretty! Let’s leave the swirl brownies for another day. Just mix it all together thoroughly, ok?

Put it in the pan

Now that we’ve got our batter propperly mixed, let’s make sure that our pan is prepped and ready. If you, like me, struggle to get your parchment to stay put, try balling it up and then gently unfolding it. You will find it is much more pliable and tends to behave a bit better. Once your pan is lined, slowly pour your batter into the pan and smooth it into one, even layer. Pop it in the oven and try to be patient. Your brownies will be ready when you gently shake the pan and there is no jiggle to the brownies, about 30-35 minutes.

Patience, please

Now your brownies are ready and you are dying to dig into that warm, gooey, fudgey brownies that you’ve been waiting oh so patiently for. Well…..bad new. You need to wait a little longer, at least 15 minutes. Why you might ask? Because we are making the best ever fudge brownies, not chocolate burning lava that will burn off all your taste buds. Good things come to those who wait, don’t worry. Once you’ve waited at least 15 minutes, you are free to eat. However, if you want them to slice nicely to take to someone, it is best to wait a couple of hours until the brownies are fully cooled. Then, just lift the entire brownie slab out of the pan and place on a cutting board. You can slice into 6 large brownies or 8 medium brownies, your choice. If I know I need to slice them, I like to bake them at night before bed, cover with a kitchen towel, and they are ready to go in the morning.

Brownie points

You made it to the end and now your hard work is ready to be devoured! Yay! Whether these are for your own enjoyment or trying to earn brownie points by sharing with others, grab a glass of milk and enjoy these decadent, chocolately, best ever fudge brownies.