Last week I posted a recipe for brownies that are delicious, but a little on the thin side. As an experiment, I decided to try decreasing the pan size to make them thick fudge brownies.
It sounds simple, but sometimes changing the pan size throws off the baking time and I wasn’t sure it would work. One handy tool for testing to make sure brownies are done is a meat thermometer.
If you’re making brownies that have little if any leavening and call for lots of fat, chocolate and sugar, the internal temperature of the brownies should be around 212F. If you’re making cake-like brownies or brownies or lighter textured brownies with baking powder, the internal temperature should be more like 175 F. These brownies are 212F brownies, to be sure! My oven is perfectly calibrated (and I know this because I have had it worked on enough to watch them perfectly calibrate it) and the brownies were done in the time given below; but if your oven is older or has quirks, using a meat thermometer to test the internal temperature is a good backup.
- 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
- 18 tablespoons (9 ounces) unsalted room temp. butter, cut into chunks
- 1/4 teaspoon instant coffee crystals, feel free to use more
- 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 2 1/2 cups (17.5 oz) granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (Morton, which says it measure like table)
- 1 1/2 cups (6.8 oz) all-purpose flour, weigh or stir and aerate if measuring volume
- 1/3 cup chocolate chips plus a bit of shortening (optional) for garnish
- Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a 9 inch square metal pan with nonstick foil or line with regular foil and grease the foil.
- In a 3 1/2 to 4 quart saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate together over very gentle heat, stirring with a wooden spoon or a heat-proof silicone scraper. When the mixture is almost fully melted, add the coffee crystals and cocoa powder and stir until smooth. Remove from heat.
- Stir the sugar into the hot cocoa mixture. Let it cool slightly (though it shouldn't be very hot if you melted your butter gently) then stir in the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla and salt and stir until smooth.
- Add the flour and stir until blended. Mixture will be pretty thick.
- Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, spreading all the way to the edges.
- Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees F. After 10 minutes, turn the oven temp down to 325 degrees F and bake for another 28 to 30 minutes or until internal temperature is 212 degrees F. You can stick a meat thermometer in the center to test.
- Let cool completely at room temperature, then chill the brownies before lifting from the pan and cutting.
- If you'd like to garnish your brownies with melted chocolate, melt chocolate chips with a bit of shortening at 50% power in the microwave, then drizzle over the cooled brownies. Let set.
Anna says
June 20, 2014 at 12:17 pmHi Jan,
I haven’t tested using glass, but here’s what I’d do. Instead of starting them at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes, I’d just bake them at 325 degrees F. for the full amount of time and expect that they might take an extra 5 minutes. Normally, I would drop the temperature by 25 degrees. but I think with this recipe a slow and even 325 would be fine – -especially with glass. Let me know how they turn out!
Jan Harris says
June 20, 2014 at 12:13 pmIf you used a glass pan, would you lower the temp? I like your shiny top brownies that also call for instant coffee, Folgers I think. I’ve made those several times, but I might just try these.
Rebecca says
June 20, 2014 at 9:28 amGood idea! I take the temperature of my bread all the time, but never thought to try it with brownies. It’s always so hard to tell when dark colored sweets are done.