What’s better than extra fudgy brownies? Extra fudgy brown butter brownies! I’ll be the first to admit that for most of my life I’d choose a boxed brownie mix over scratch made 100% of the time. Betty and Duncan make a fantastic brownie, I’ll never turn one down. But, as someone who seeks a scratch made version of all of my favorite foods, I just couldn’t get beat out by Betty!
Perfecting this recipe has been a labor of chocolate love. Much to the delight of my husband, who is oddly present to help with the dishes once I’m finished with the batter mixing bowl. The result is a deep dark chocolate color, intense chocolate flavor, and extra fudgy texture. The brown butter adds a depth of flavor and really pushes this brownie over the top! Brown butter is one of my favorite ingredients. I love it so much, I did whole blog post on brown butter, linked here. Brown butter will return often as an ingredient on HIH.
Exceptions to the rule: easy to find ingredients
Since I live in a pretty rural area, I try hard to keep the ingredients in my recipes easy to find. This recipe is a bit of an exception. I found everything I needed at my local rural market, except the dutch process cocoa powder which I found at the big store in town and the sea salt. The sea salt was purchased at a cheese shop in Kansas City called The Better Cheddar. The flakes are huge, perfect for a giant pan of brownies. I wouldn’t make a two hour drive up to Kansas City just for sea salt, I imagine you wouldn’t either. I did find it here on Amazon. If you are in Kansas City, go to the Better Cheddar, it’s a charcuterie board gold mine!
Extra Fudgy Brown Butter Brownies
Equipment
- Large mixing bowl
- Stand mixer or hand mixer
- Wooden spoon
- Heatproof measuring cup
- 9"x13" dark metal baking pan
- Parchment paper – I love the pre-cut sheets!
- Rubber spatula
- Medium sauce pan
- Whisk
- Measuring cups and spoons
Ingredients
- 2 ½ sticks room temperature salted butter cut into chunks
- 3 tablespoons softened butter for greasing the pan
- 8 oz semisweet chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, or 60-70% cacao dark chocolate chips or roughly chopped
- ¾ cup unsweetened dutch process cocoa powder divided (1/4 cup, 1/2 cup)
- 1 tablespoon espresso powder or 1 shot espresso
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- ½ cup dark brown sugar packed
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 6 large eggs
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1½ tablespoon flaky sea salt optional
Instructions
- Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F.
- Grease a 9×13-inch dark metal pan with softened butter, then line with parchment paper, leaving overhang on all sides. Grease the parchment with softened butter. You could also use cooking spray if you don’t want to mess with smearing butter, but butter will give the best result.
- Combine the chocolate, ¼ cup of cocoa powder, and espresso or espresso powder in a heatproof liquid measuring cup or medium bowl and set aside.
- Add the butter to a medium saucepan over medium heat and cook until the butter just comes to a vigorous simmer, continue cooking over medium heat for approximately 6-8 minutes, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon until the butter turns a golden brown and smells nutty and rich. The butter will foam and sizzle, you'll see the color come through the foam. Watch closely so the butter doesn't burn!
- Immediately pour the hot browned butter over the chocolate mixture and whisk until the chocolate is completely smooth and melted, then set aside for a few minutes to cool.
- Combine the granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and eggs in a large bowl. Beat with an electric hand or stand mixer on high speed until light and fluffy, about 10 minutes. It will be similar to the texture of extra fluffy pancake batter.
- With the mixer on, pour in the slightly cooled chocolate and butter mixture and blend until smooth.
- Sift in the flour and remaining ½ cup cocoa powder and use a rubber spatula to gently fold until just combined. This will take some patience in folding.
- Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and smooth the top with a spatula.
- Bake at 350° F until lightly puffed on top, about 20 minutes.
- Remove the baking pan from the oven using oven mitts or kitchen towels, then lightly drop the pan on a flat surface 2-3 times until the brownies deflate slightly. Sprinkle with the sea salt if desired.
- Return the pan to the oven and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out fudgy but the edges look cooked through, about 15 minutes more. The center of the brownies will seem a little under-baked, but that's because they are so fudgy!
- Set the brownies on a cooling rack and cool completely in the pan.
- Use the parchment paper to lift the cooled brownies out of the pan. Cut into 12 big brownies or 24 small brownies and enjoy!
Notes
- Could you substitute melted butter for the brown butter? Sure, you could. The brown butter is what makes this recipe extra special, but I’ve also been in a big hurry and made these with just melted butter and they were still pretty darn special!
- Could you substitute natural process cocoa powder for dutch process? You could and the brownies would be delicious, but they won’t have that signature dark chocolate color and extra fudgy texture as they would if you went with the dutch process.
- The time it takes to beat the egg/sugar mixture is about the same amount of time as it takes to brown the butter. If you’re using a stand mixer to beat your eggs, you can brown the butter (just don’t forget to let it cool a bit after melting the chocolate before adding it to your eggs so you don’t accidentally end up with a scrambled egg situation) while you’re browning the butter. If you can master this, this recipe BARELY takes longer than a boxed brownie mix.
- I find that regular salted butter from the grocery store has just the right level of salt. I know this is a no-no for most bakers, BUT, this hasn’t let me down yet! If you’d rather start with unsalted butter, add two teaspoons of kosher salt to the sugar/egg mixture.
- Not into salt on your sweets? The sky is the limit when it comes to toppings. Candies, sweetened coconut, or the traditional dusting of powdered sugar would also be excellent!
Nutrition
Keys to the extra fudgy texture:
- Beat the eggs for the full 10 minutes. Don’t skimp on the time here. It seems like a long time, especially if you’re using a hand mixer, but you’ll want to tough it out.
- Gently fold in the flour so you don’t undo all good stuff you did for the eggs and sugar by beating them for so long! Just keep folding, don’t give up and stir. You can do it, I believe in you.
- The pan slam. The pan slam mid-bake will knock down the air inside the brownies to create the dense fudgy texture. The pan slam will also keep the top of the brownies level as they cook so the edges aren’t higher than the center.
- Don’t overbake! While most baked goods should show a clean toothpick and pass the toothpick test, in this recipe. If the toothpick comes out of the center with a little batter, that’s where you want to be!
- The dutch process cocoa powder’s chemical make up reacts with the other ingredients in a way that enhances the fudgy texture. I could go on about the acidic vs. alkaline differences between natural and dutch process cocoa powder for this recipe, but, I won’t. Give it a Google if you’d like to take a deep dive.
I’ll leave you with this beautiful stack of extra fudgy brown butter brownies. I made these for a dinner party we hosted for our friends over the weekend. This stack quickly vanished when it came time for dessert! If you make a batch, comment below or give HIH a tag so I can see your delicious creations! Happy baking!
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