Glossy Fudge Brownies Recipe | BraveTart (2024)

FAQs

Why isn't my brownie glossy? ›

The first thing you can do to get shiny top brownies is to use hot melted butter. Melting the butter helps the sugar dissolve as you stir it in. If you wait too long after melting the butter, the sugar won't dissolve as well.

Ingredients. Fudge doesn't contain very much besides chocolate, sweetened condensed milk and if you want some inclusions like nuts, marshmallows, cookies, cacao nibs, peanut butter, dried fruit and so on. Whereas brownies contain cacao powder (no chocolate!), flour, eggs, butter or oil, baking powder and nuts.

Fudgy brownies have a higher fat-to-flour ratio than cakey ones. So add more fat—in this case, butter and chocolate. A cakey batch has more flour and relies on baking powder for leavening. The amount of sugar and eggs does not change whether you're going fudgy or cakey.

Duncan Hines Dolly Parton's Fabulously Fudgy Brownie Mix

Out of all the brownie mixes we tried, it tasted the most homemade. And if you're looking for fudgy, this is the best brownie mix for you. Even the fully cooked brownie was like chewing brownie batter. And it doesn't end there.

Medrich's trick is to refrigerate the prepared brownie batter overnight and up to three days before you bake it. Medrich believes this will also let the flavors settle into each other better, creating a richer result.

Either you overfilled the middle of your brownies pan, you aren't allowing enough baking time, or there's a problem with the oven's heating element. It's possible, you have too much batter in the pan, and that most of it is in the center. Or your oven's heating element is damaged, or worn out.

Even fudgy brownies will pull from the edges once they've finished baking. You'll see that the edges look dry while the middle still looks soft or slightly wet. Chewy and cakey brownies will have dry edges with firmer-looking centers. The edges of chewy brownies might even look crispy—this is totally fine!

Achieving a fudgy brownie is all to do with the ratio of fat to flour. A fudgy brownie recipe will use more fat than flour. Generally this is achieved by adding more butter or real chocolate to your brownie recipe. A cakey brownie recipe on the other hand will call for more flour in the ratio of fat to flour.

To test for doneness with a toothpick, insert a toothpick into the center of the brownies and pull it back out. For fudgy brownies, you'll want to see some moist crumbs attached to the toothpick when you pull it back out. If it looks like it's covered in brownie batter, the brownies will need to bake a bit longer.

The ideal consistency of brownie mix is thick and gooey, similar to a thick cake batter. When you mix the ingredients together, the batter should be smooth and free of lumps, with a slightly sticky texture. This consistency is important for achieving moist and fudgy brownies that are rich in flavor.

What are the three types of brownies? ›

Brownie textures fall into three general camps… Cakey, fudgy and chewy. Cakey brownies, like the name implies, are light, moist and airy, with a slightly fluffy, cake-like interior. Fudgy brownies are moist, dense and gooey, with almost the texture of fudge, but not quite as compact.

Brownies are perfect when the middle is just baked, so it sets to a fudgy, moist consistency - if your flour and baking powder are causing the edges to rise, cook and set too quickly, they will give the appearance of a sunken centre, even if the centre is perfectly cooked.

A clever hybrid between cake and cookie, brownies are a dense, chocolaty bar cookie baked in a rectangular pan; they can be fudge-like, cake-like, or anything in between. It was about three times more expensive to make the brownies from scratch than to use a mix, owing mostly to the cost of chocolate and walnuts.

Pillsbury's cake cut easily into beautiful slices, making it ideal for a special occasion. The Duncan Hines version had a rich and buttery flavor, but I found the texture to be dry. Betty Crocker's cake was sweet enough to eat on its own, so I'd recommend skipping the frosting.

You can absolutely substitute butter for the vegetable oil. Use the same quantity specified in the directions (for example, if it calls for 1/3 cup of oil, use 5 1/3 tablespoons of butter). Melt it down, then let it cool a bit.

Adding Too Much Fat to the Recipe

For starters, your brownies' level of oiliness depends on the amount of fat you add to the recipe. Whether you use butter, margarine, or vegetable oil, putting too much in your brownie batter causes it to be greasy.

As their name implies, cakey brownies just might remind you of a good piece of chocolate cake. Instead of a dense, rich center, cakey brownies are the thickest of the three and have a lighter, airier texture due to a lower amount of fat, more flour, and the addition of baking powder for leavening.

Mixing incorporates air into the brownie batter. The more air that is incorporated will result in a more open, airy and cakey brownie. If you wanted fudgy brownies and you got cakey, check on your mixing technique and pull it back. Making fudgy brownies at home is often best done with a wooden spoon.

When you peek in the oven, the brownies should be pulling slightly away from the sides of the pan. The brownie's top should have a dry-looking sheen. At the edge of the pan, the brownies should be slightly puffed, and in the middle of the pan, the brownies should be set, and not wobbly.