I finally found the fudgiest brownie recipe ever… on Reddit (it’s irresistible)

When I was in high school and just starting to take baking seriously, I decided to create a homemade brownie that could beat the Ghirardelli Double Dark boxed mix. After countless attempts, I gave in to the fact that there simply is no better brownie. Much to the dismay of the tasting panel in my group of friends, I gave up. Since then, I have continued to make brownies, both at home and in professional kitchens, but over time I forgot about my abandoned mission.

Reading an article in the baking subreddit about the fudgiest, gooiest brownies, I was suddenly flooded with memories of my brownie quest, like a proverbial madeleine soaking up tea. At first glance, fifteen years after I began my own brownie quest, bakers always seemed to come to the same conclusion: Homemade brownies never seem fudgy, gooey, or chocolatey enough to beat Ghirardelli.

Reddit’s Best Tips for Making Fudgy Brownies

Since the baking community is so helpful, people have been sharing their tried-and-true recipes and tips for better-than-boxed brownies. The first comment was a link to Stella Parks’ recipe, a great place to start. From there, the post quickly became a collection of trusted techniques and new ones to try:

• Hazelnut butter—This was the most suggested technique and a common theme in many recipes shared, including Stella Parks’. Browning butter evaporates the water and concentrates the flavor of the butter.

• High sugar content—Sugar is a tenderizer and retains moisture. High sugar content ensures moist brownies and helps create that coveted crinkle brownie crust. A mixture of granulated sugar and brown sugar makes softer brownies than using granulated sugar alone and adds rich caramel flavors.

• Froth the eggs—I first learned about this in Tartine’s cookbook, but it’s also in the Stella Parks recipe linked in the top comment. Beating the eggs with the sugar for a prolonged period gives structure, acts as a leavening agent and prevents the brownies from being too dense. It’s also the other secret to that shiny, wispy brownie crust.

• Cooking time— Many bakers recommend undercooking brownies, baking them until the tops are lightly cracked and moist crumbs stick to a toothpick inserted in the center. If you bake brownies until a toothpick comes out clean, they will be overcooked and dry when cooled.

My thoughts on Reddit’s fudgiest brownie recipe

A kind baker followed up in a new post with a recipe he created, combining everyone’s favorite recipes and tips for the ultimate homemade fudge brownie. I took their recipe to the kitchen and browned butter, melted chocolate, and whisked eggs.

The brownies had a nice crinkle crust, were intensely chocolatey, and had a perfect fudgy texture without falling apart. They were irresistible and gave me the added satisfaction of ending my quest, once and for all.

The recipe was beautiful as written and I wouldn’t change a thing. However, I did find some tips for choosing your cocoa powder, chocolate, and baking pan.

Tips for Making Your Own Perfect Brownie

This recipe ingeniously calls for both melted bittersweet chocolate and dutch cocoa powder, and goes even further by blooming the cocoa powder in the still-hot browned butter. This step extracts additional chocolate flavor from the cocoa powder.

With an incredible cup of cocoa powder in the recipe, splurge on high-quality cocoa if you can. Dutch-process cocoa has a milder flavor, darker color, and a higher percentage of cocoa butter, resulting in richer, fudgier brownies.

Stick to 60 percent cocoa chocolate. Milk chocolate would be cloying and disappointingly mild in flavor. Dark chocolate has a more intense flavor, but at the same time you need the fat from the cocoa butter, so I wouldn’t go higher than 70% cocoa, otherwise you risk dry brownies.

Use the right brownie pan-a metal pan for fudgy brownies to slice; a glass or ceramic pan for gooey, undercooked brownies that you can eat with a spoon.

The recipe bakes in a 9×13 pan for standard brownies or in an 8×8 pan for very thick brownies (which will need to bake longer). If, like me, you have a small household and no control over chocolate, you can divide the recipe in half and bake in an 8×8 pan for a smaller batch of standard brownies (they will bake faster, so check them after 20 minutes).

Get the recipe with the title: The fudgiest brownie recipe on Reddit

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