Our Best Easy Fudgy Brownies

This is our absolute best brownie recipe. They are rich, fudgy in the middle, and made completely from scratch. These homemade brownies are so much better than the box, and I bet you have what you need to make them already sitting in your kitchen.

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⭐️ Try these thicker no-fuss brownies that are fudgy and gooey in the middle and chewy around the edges.

Why we think this is the best brownie recipe

1. Thanks to cocoa powder, these brownies are easy to make and taste rich and extra chocolaty.
2. The perfect blend of butter, sugar, and flour guarantees brownies with fudgy middles and beautiful crinkly tops.
3. Far from cakey, their moist and fudgy texture is similar to what you’d expect from boxed mixes. These are perfect for boxed brownie lovers. Even better, these chocolate brownies are much more flavorful than anything made from a box. They taste amazing, just read the reviews!

Saying these are the “best brownies ever” is a bold statement, but it’s true in our home.

Key ingredients for brownies

These brownies require one bowl and come together in minutes. There’s also a good chance you already have the ingredients on hand.

Cocoa powder is what makes these easy brownies special. Over the years, we have used a variety of cocoa powders. Natural cocoa powder, Dutch-processed cocoa powder, and raw cacao powder all work in this brownie recipe. Use what you love. I love the flavor of Droste Cacao (a Dutch cocoa powder) in these brownies.

Butter adds so much more flavor than oil ever could. We use 100% butter in the recipe and don’t feel the need to add oil. I use unsalted butter, but you can swap it for salted, just leave out the salt called for in our recipe below.

Plain granulated sugar balances the bitterness of unsweetened cocoa powder in our recipe. It also adds to the texture of the brownies. It makes the centers soft and the tops crinkly. Brown sugar works, but you might loose the crinkly top.

Eggs add richness and provide structure to the brownies.

Salt and vanilla help to round out their flavor. Salt in baking might seem odd, but just like in savory cooking, it makes all the other ingredients pop.

All-purpose flour is the last ingredient you will need to make brownies, but you don’t need much. We’re on the hunt for extra fudgy brownies, and keeping the flour to a minimum helps with that. Cakey brownie recipes will call for more flour.

If you are gluten-free, while we have not tried ourselves, if you read through the comments below, there are quite a few people who have had success using a gluten-free flour blend (like the Bob’s Red Mill blend).

Why don’t you add chocolate?

Since we are using cocoa powder, these brownies aren’t too sweet. If you are like us and find yourself reaching for dark chocolate over milk, these are most certainly for you.

This recipe is slightly adapted from Alice Medrich’s Cocoa Brownies found in many of her cookbooks. Medrich is a genius when it comes to chocolate. Search on Google and you’ll see that some brownie recipes call for chocolate that is melted into butter, then mixed with sugar, eggs, and flour. This recipe is different — and smart.

Instead of using chocolate, Medrich calls for cocoa powder. By removing the chocolate (as well as the fat and sugar that goes along with it), she fine-tuned the brownies so that the middles were softer and moist and the tops were shiny and candy-like. The recipe is pure gold.

⭐️ If you want to add chopped chocolate or chocolate chips, you can. These are your brownies, after all! We recommend stirring a handful of chocolate into the batter before pouring it into the baking pan or scattering chocolate on top of the batter in the pan.

Recipe overview. How to make brownies in 4 steps

These brownies are simple to make. You only need one mixing bowl, a small saucepan, and a spoon. There’s no mixer or fancy equipment required! To make them, I follow these easy steps:

Step 1, Melt your butter with sugar, salt, and cocoa powder. Here is where the saucepan comes into play. Make something called a double boiler, a fancy term for a small saucepan filled with an inch or two of water set over low heat. I place a bowl with the butter, sugar, and cocoa powder over the saucepan and watch as they melt into a gritty-looking mixture.

⭐️ Melting the butter with sugar and cocoa powder, helps create that crinkly top we all love. The heated sugar moves up to the top of the brownies when they are in the oven, which is how they get that shiny top.

Alternate methods: You can complete this process in the microwave (many of our readers have). I prefer the stovetop method since I know it helps achieve that beautiful crackly top. You can also melt the butter into the sugar and cocoa in a saucepan over medium-low heat. The double-boiler is a fail-safe against scorching the batter, but as long as you keep the heat to medium-low and stay close by, you should be fine.

Step 2, Add the vanilla and eggs. We use two eggs to make our brownie batter, but I add them one at a time. I add the first egg and mix it into the butter, sugar, and cocoa powder. When the first egg is mixed in, I repeat with the second egg. After adding the eggs, the batter will transform from a gritty batter to one that looks more similar to shiny pudding.

Step 3, Add the flour. After mixing the flour into the batter, we beat the batter with a spoon for 40 to 50 strokes. The batter will be thick. This extra beating makes sure that the butter emulsifies into the batter, which makes sure the brownies bake perfectly in the oven. I usually tell you to be careful not to over-mix batters, but that’s not the case with these simple brownies.

Step 4, Bake them. The brownies bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes. I’ve dedicated a whole section below telling you how I tell when brownies are ready to be pulled out of the oven, because nobody wants an over baked brownie, right?

What pan should I use?

We bake the brownies in an 8-inch square pan. Since posting the recipe, quite a few readers have asked if it would be okay to use a larger pan. You can, but you will need to double the recipe.

If you double the recipe, a 9-inch by 13-inch rectangular pan is perfect, and the brownies will be slightly thicker.

Use light-colored or shiny metal baking pans since they cook more evenly. Dark pans or non-metal pans like glass or ceramic can affect bake time and the texture of the brownies when baked. If these pans are all that you have, just keep an eye of the brownies while they bake and check on them 5 minutes before the recipe suggests below, and then again every 5 minutes after that until they are done.

How to tell when brownies are done

Telling when brownies are ready to come out of the oven can be a little tricky, but don’t worry, with my tips you’ll be a brownie pro in no time!

1. Use a timer. I’m terrible at getting distracted. Without a timer cueing me to check on the brownies, I’m destined for over baked brownies! They should take 20 to 25 minutes, so to be safe, set the timer for 18 minutes. This way, you can keep a close eye on them towards the end of cooking.
2. Use a toothpick. Stick it into the center of the pan, and pull it out. If there is wet batter on the toothpick, they need more time. If there are moist crumbs on the toothpick, they are done, and if there’s nothing on the toothpick, you might have overbaked them so definitely take them out of the oven.
3. Use your eyes. Perfectly baked brownies will look a little underbaked in the middle. (Sounds kind of strange, right). You see, as the brownies cool, they continue to cook. So when the edges look dry and the middle looks slightly underdone, take them out of the oven. Even if it ends up that you took them out a minute early, an underbaked square in the middle of the pan is much better than the whole pan being overbaked. Plus, if I were at your house, I’d happily eat the underbaked middle.

Why did my brownies take longer to bake?

After sharing this brownie recipe years ago, some readers have found that they needed to bake their batch for 5 to 10 minutes more than we suggest in the recipe. These take 20 to 22 minutes in our oven, but ovens do vary, which is why having visual cues for telling when something is done is so important.

If you find that your brownies need extra time, I’d check the oven temperature. Some in-home ovens are uncalibrated, so while you think you’ve set the temperature properly, the oven can be off by 25 degrees! Don’t worry though, a simple oven thermometer set on a rack inside your oven can tell you the real truth. All kitchen stores sell them, I think ours was about $10.

More Brownie Recipes

Our Best Easy Fudgy Brownies

Makes 16 Brownies

Nutrition Per Serving
Serving Size
1 brownie
/
Calories
158 calories
/
Protein
2 g
/
Carbohydrate
21 g
/
Dietary Fiber
2 g
/
Total Sugars
16 g
/
Total Fat
8 g
/
Saturated Fat
5 g
/
Cholesterol
42 mg

AUTHOR: 

Adam and Joanne Gallagher