- [Claire] We always say this, I know,
but these are actually the best brownies
you're ever going to have.
They're gooey, they're chocolatey, they're fudgy.
Oh, they live up to every expectation
you think a brownie should be.
(lively music)
We took all the tips and the tricks from the internet,
from our old gramma's recipes,
from places we'd worked,
to find the best recipe that we could.
Throw out every other recipe that you have for brownies.
This is the one you will use going forward
for the rest of your life.
(lively music)
I'm not trying to toot our own horn,
but beep beep, you know.
(lively music)
All right, guys, as always, prep your tin.
You know what to do, butter and parchment.
So the first cooking job that I ever had was working
for a pastry chef and he made these incredible brownies.
When you start working in kitchens,
they always say write down the recipes
'cause you're gonna forget them later.
And of course, I did not do that,
but there are a few things that I remember
from his recipe that I really wanted
to incorporate into our brownie recipe.
Obviously, good brownies need good chocolate,
and the chocolate bar you wanna use is dealer's choice.
You can go for something really mellow
like a milk chocolate bar or go into something really,
really dark, like an 80% dark chocolate
would work really well in here.
We're gonna double up on the chocolate so we're gonna
use cocoa powder as well.
Because we wanted a really rich, dark flavor and color,
we went with the dutch processed.
You can use regular cocoa powder here,
but we're always looking for that intense flavor,
that intense color.
The one on the left used regular cocoa powder.
It's kind of drier on top and almost too dense
and fudgy on the bottom.
We're adding a little bit of cocoa powder here.
We're gonna add even more later.
Espresso powder just does a really great job
of enhancing any chocolate flavor in a recipe.
If you're worried about the caffeine,
you can get a decaf powder as well.
It's not gonna taste like coffee or espresso,
it's really just another flavor enhancer.
When we add the hot, melted butter to the chocolate,
cocoa powder and espresso powder,
it's gonna help melt everything down and dissolve,
which is gonna help keep our brownies
really fudgy later on.
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Sugars, we have granulated sugar, and then when deciding
between light brown and dark brown,
the real difference here is that dark brown
has more molasses, ergo more flavor.
I don't even know what ergo means.
Again, just wanted to knock your socks off
with the flavor here and dark brown
was the right one for the job.
And we're also gonna add a bit of salt
as it brings out the flavor in any baked good.
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So we're gonna have six eggs.
Always crack your eggs into a separate bowl
in case you get any shell.
Best way to remedy that is to use the egg shell.
It breaks the surface tension and is the easiest way
to get eggshell out of your eggs.
You can start by adding one egg to the sugar
just so you don't make a huge mess.
Once you get it going though, you can add the rest of 'em,
no big deal.
You don't have to be super careful like you would
for a cake for instance.
So working for that pastry chef,
one thing that he did with his brownies is he would beat
the living crap out of the eggs and sugar and really,
really incorporate tons of air,
so much so that it would look like
a super thick pancake batter almost.
This is what happens when you don't beat the sugar and eggs,
kind of just falls really flat, right.
The great thing about beating the eggs and the sugar
is you create a really solid foundation
and you don't have to use a chemical leavener.
Then you're gonna pour in that beautiful ganache
that we made.
Oh my God.
Actually, when we were shooting this,
there is a crowd of people around us 'cause
we couldn't get over how insanely delicious this looked.
Oh God, I just, I can't believed we baked these.
Honestly, I could've just eaten the batter myself.
(lively music)
I'm really upset that America can't get
on the metric system, but like fine.
If we're gonna use cups, always scoop and level,
to make sure we have the right amount of flour.
If you just take the cup straight into the flour,
it's gonna be denser than you need it to be.
And you're going to sift the flour and the cocoa powder
into the mixture to make sure we have no lumps
and just make sure that we're really
quickly incorporating it into the rest of the batter.
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And fold.
Because we beat all that air in with the eggs,
we don't wanna totally deflate that,
so just get the dry ingredients incorporated
as quickly as you can.
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Pour the completed batter into your prepped tin,
smooth it out to make sure everything's pretty level.
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And into the oven it goes.
So these are gonna rise quite a bit.
After about 20 minutes, we're gonna take them out.
This is my favorite tip of the whole recipe.
Take the brownies out and slam them on your kitchen counter.
It's gonna crack the top as well as evens out everything
and you get a much more consistent texture.
These are the same recipe.
The one on the left is not whacked, right whacked.
At this point, we're also going to add a bit of sea salt,
optional but highly recommended.
Adds a little salty bite, sweet and salty, always good.
With a lot of baked goods, you'll stick a toothpick in
and no batter remains, then you're good.
It's kind of not the case with these brownies.
You will have a good amount of fudginess that comes
out on the toothpick.
Trust us, they've been in there for like 45 minutes.
They're definitely cooked through.
They're just fudgy.
When they do cool down, they also will deflate quite a bit.
It results in a really even texture all throughout.
Again, I can't say fudgy enough.
I don't even like fudge, little known thing about me,
but these brownies are insane.
I need to cut these nice.
They need to be a good, perfect square.
It's so satisfying to see a perfectly cut
batch of brownies, obviously.
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Oh my gosh, a little tip too,
is to clean your knife after each cut.
You'll see a little bit of that fudginess comes off.
They're fudgy but they're not dense.
(lively music)
And that is it.
I mean, look at that texture.
Look at it!
This is like your go to brownie batter.
It's amazing as is,
but you can also mix in anything that you want,
more chocolate chunks, potato chips, pretzels.
This is like a phenomenal standard brownie recipe
but feel free to go crazy and mix in whatever you want.
Making brownies from scratch, you know,
there's other options out there that are easier,
but it's one of those fundamental baked goods
that doesn't take a ton of technique,
but they also go with everything and every event.
You know what I mean?
Like you have a break up, brownies.
Birthday, brownies.
Like, they kind of work for anything.
Just one of those feel good, crowd pleasing deserts,
that's just always a win.
Okay, that's fine.
I'm just gonna keep talking and we're leave it
and it's gonna be fine.
- [Male] You're funny, Claire.
- [Claire] (laughing) Stop.
- [Male] You're so funny.
- [Claire] You're so funny.
- [Male] You're funny.
- [Claire] Beep, beep.
- [Male] You're slacking.
- [Claire] I guess.
(camera clicking)