The Fudgiest Brown Butter Brownies Recipe (2024)

DessertOctober 29, 2020

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Hey everyone! It’s Sierra here, and today I am so excited to share with you guys a recipe for these fudgy brown butter brownies that I’ve spent almost a month working on! It was worth the effort because I am so happy with how dense and chocolatey these brownies turned out.

I’d been wanting to make a brownie recipe for a while after waking up one day and craving a fudgy brownie. There were just two main characteristics I wanted my brownies to have: shiny cracked top and a fudgy texture (as opposed to cakey). I didn’t initially set out to make brown butter brownies, but after trying it on a whim (inspired by how amazing they made my chocolate chip cookies taste), there was no going back to regular melted butter.

The Fudgiest Brown Butter Brownies Recipe (2)

Keys To a Complex Brownie Flavor

Brown butter. After this recipe, I think I’m going to use brown butter instead of melted butter in all baked goods that call for it. The nutty, complex flavor that is achieved through browning the butter just adds such an incredible flavor to whatever baked goods it’s used in. Whether it was the aforementioned chocolate chip cookies or these brown butter brownies, you can definitely tell the difference that brown butter makes.

The best part is, it’s so easy to make brown butter! All you have to do is melt the butter in a pot over medium heat while stirring until it turns brown and smells nutty. That’s it. It’s almost as easy as just melting butter in the microwave, but the results are astronomically tastier.

Coffee. Believe it or not, adding a bit of coffee to your brownies will actually enhance the chocolate flavor. Chocolate and coffee have similar flavor profiles, so when they are combined, it brings out the best of both.

Sea Salt. This one was really shocking to me. I always thought it was blasphemous to add sea salt to a brownie, but when I tried it, I was very pleasantly surprised. The slight saltiness from the sea salt flakes helps bring out even more flavors of sweetness and chocolate.

The Fudgiest Brown Butter Brownies Recipe (3)

Keys to a Fudgy Brownie

Through my trials, there were a few things I discovered to help make brownies as fudgy as possible.

First, I found that using both Dutch-processed cocoa powder and melted chocolate yielded the best results. This makes sense because I am able to pack so much chocolate into the batter. The melted chocolate helps the resulting brownie have a nice smooth texture when you bite into it, while the cocoa powder adds an intense chocolate flavor. To learn more about the role of chocolate in baking, check out Kevin’s in-depth post!

Second, some recipes online call for the use of baking soda or baking powder, but I omitted it from my recipe. If you don’t know, baking soda and baking powder are leavening agents, used to help your baked goods rise. However, I found that using either one resulted in the brownie turning out too cakey for my taste. Instead, I whipped the eggs until they double in size to incorporate air into the dough, which acts as a natural leavening that didn’t turn the brownie cakey.

The Fudgiest Brown Butter Brownies Recipe (4)

Keys to a Shiny Cracked Top

My other goal was making my brownies have a beautiful shiny and cracked top just like those brownies you see on magazine covers. This one took a lot of experimentation, and I can’t explain why everything works the way it does, but these are the techniques that worked the best for me.

Use room temperature eggs: if you forget to take your eggs out an hour before baking, you can soak them in warm water for a few minutes
Whip eggs with sugar until fully dissolved and fluffy: this is the tip that is most repeated online for how to get that thin shiny layer
Mix in the melted chocolate and butter mixture with your batter while it is still warm
Don’t overfold the sifted flour and cocoa powder: stop folding it once all of the dry ingredients have disappeared
After the batter is poured into the pan, smooth the top with a spatula: this creates a nice smooth and level surface for the crust to form on

While not all of these are backed by science (not that I know of at least), I can say from my month of experimentation that these tips work.

With these tips in hand, you are ready to make your own decadent, fudgy brown butter brownies!

The Fudgiest Brown Butter Brownies Recipe (5)

Looking for more decadent desserts?

Chewy Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies
S’mores Tarts
Zucchini Mochi Brownies

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The Fudgiest Brown Butter Brownies

4 from 16 votes

Recipe by Sierra ParkCourse: DessertCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Servings

brownies

Prep time

minutes

Baking time

minutes

Taking a bite into these fudgy brown butter brownies is like taking a bite of heaven. These brownies are dense, fudgy, chocolately, and complex in flavor and have a beautiful thin cracked top. This is definitely one you’ll be making for the rest of your life.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (336g) (1 cup for melting, 1/2 cup for addition at the end)
2 teaspoon instant coffee (or instant espresso)
1 cup butter (224g)
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sugar (192g)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (60g)
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder (40g)
Sea salt flakes
Equipment
8×8 inch baking pan (preferably aluminum; if using glass will need to increase baking time)
Mixing bowls
Small pot
Whisk or hand mixer
Sieve

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8×8 baking pan with parchment paper
Place 1 cup of chocolate chips and instant coffee in a small mixing bowl
Melt the butter in a pot over medium heat and stir constantly until it is browned and smells nutty. Make sure you keep stirring so the bottom doesn’t get burnt
Pour the brown butter into the bowl with chocolate and coffee. Let it sit covered for a minute then gently mix until everything is combined. Set aside while prepping the rest
Crack 3 eggs in a larger bowl and break the egg yolks before adding the sugar. With a whisk or a hand mixer, beat the egg mixture first on low for 1-2 min, then high for 3-4 minutes. It should be lighter in color and doubled in volume. It will be very foamy
By this time, the chocolate mixture should have cooled a little, but not cooled completely to room temperature. Whisk in the warm chocolate and butter mixture into the egg mixture. Add vanilla extract and salt and whisk until everything is incorporated
Sift in flour and cocoa powder. With a spatula, fold the mixture just until there are no dry ingredients remaining.
Add the final 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and fold the mixture to make sure the chocolate chips are evenly distributed
Pour the batter into the baking pan and drop it on the counter a few times to get the air bubbles out. Bake in the oven for 26-29 minutes
Once done, take the pan out of the oven and place it on a cooling rack. Generously sprinkle sea salt flakes over the brownie. After 5-10 minutes, take out the brownies from the pan and place it on the cooling rack. If you can, wait for it to fully cool before digging in!