Ina Garten-Inspired Chocolate Brownies
The thin, shiny, crackled skin on top of a good brownie is the most asked-about and least explained thing in baking.
It is sugar, dissolved into the eggs, rising to the surface and setting there like a meringue. Which means it depends almost entirely on one step: beating the eggs and sugar together long enough and warm enough that the sugar actually goes into solution. Four to five minutes, until the mixture is pale, thickened, and you can no longer feel grains when you rub a little between your fingers.
Stir the sugar in briefly and it stays as suspended crystals. No dissolved sugar, no shiny top — regardless of the chocolate you used.
Jump to the recipe ↓Ina Garten-Inspired Chocolate Brownies
Serves 16 · Baking
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 30 min
- Total
- 2 hr
Involved8 steps, a technique that commonly fails, over two hours
Ingredients
- 250 g dark chocolate, 70%, chopped
- 225 g butter
- 4 eggs, room temperature
- 400 g caster sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 120 g plain flour
- 30 g cocoa powder
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 150 g chocolate chunks, optional
Method
- Heat the oven to 175°C (155°C fan). Line a 23 cm square tin with paper.
- Melt the chocolate and butter together and let it cool to barely warm.
- Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla , until pale and thick and the sugar has dissolved — rub a little between your fingers to check.4–5 minutes
- Fold the warm chocolate mixture in gently.
- Sift the flour, cocoa and salt over and fold until the last streak disappears.
- Fold in the chunks. Spread in the tin.
- Bake. A skewer should come out with moist crumbs, not clean.28–32 minutes
- Cool completely in the tin — at least — before cutting.2 hours
Melted chocolate, not just cocoa
The dense fudgy texture comes from cocoa butter, which is solid at room temperature and sets the brownie as it cools. Cocoa powder alone gives a cakier, drier result because most of the fat has been pressed out of it. Use real chocolate for the body and a little cocoa for depth.
Underbake them, deliberately
Take them out when a skewer comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it, never clean. Brownies continue to set for a long time as they cool, and a tin baked until the centre tests clean has already gone past fudgy into cake. If they look slightly wet in the middle, they are right.
Cool them fully, however hard that is
Warm brownies have not set. Cutting them at that stage drags the middle out and the pieces slump. Two hours at room temperature, or forty minutes in the fridge if you have people waiting, and a hot knife wiped between cuts.
Storing
Four days in an airtight tin, and better on day two. They freeze for three months cut into squares — and eaten straight from the freezer they are very close to chocolate truffle.
Questions people ask
How do I get the shiny crackly top?
Beat the eggs and sugar until the sugar has dissolved — about four to five minutes. That is the whole trick.
Fudgy or cakey?
Fudgy comes from more fat and less flour, and from underbaking. This recipe is firmly on the fudgy side.
Why did mine come out dry?
Overbaked. Pull them when the skewer still has moist crumbs on it.
Can I use milk chocolate?
Not for the base — it has too much sugar and too little cocoa butter. Use it for the chunks if you like.
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