The Best Brownie Recipe
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If you’ve been searching for the ultimate homemade brownie recipe, look no further. This is it!
The best brownie recipes start with real melted chocolate, which is why store-bought brownie mixes made from cocoa powder lack the rich, fudgy flavor of homemade brownies. My all-time favorite brownie recipe comes from pastry chef Nick Malgieri’s cookbook Chocolate: From Simple Cookies to Extravagant Showstoppers. Made with melted bittersweet chocolate bars, the brownies are fudgy in the center, cakey on the surface, and just plain out of this world. The recipe has been around for decades and praised by top cooking publications such as The New York Times, Saveur, and The Splendid Table, to name just a few, so you don’t have to take my word for it—try for yourself and see!
Table of Contents
“The name does not lie!! These are hands-down the BEST brownies I have made!!! My entire family devoured them.”
What You’ll Need To Make The Best Brownie Recipe
- All-Purpose Flour: The base of your brownies, providing structure. Be sure to measure it using the spoon and level method for accuracy.
- Sugar and Brown Sugar: White sugar adds sweetness and a light texture, while brown sugar contributes to moisture and a deeper flavor due to its molasses content.
- Eggs: Essential for binding the ingredients together. Eggs also add moisture and help create a rich texture in the brownies.
- Unsalted Butter: Adds richness and flavor. Using unsalted butter allows you to control the amount of salt in the recipe.
- Vanilla Extract: Complements the chocolate and adds depth of flavor.
- Salt: Balances the sweetness and enhances the overall flavors of the brownies.
- Semi-Sweet or Bittersweet Chocolate: The star of the show. It’s crucial to use good quality chocolate, like Ghirardelli or Guittard, because the chocolate flavor is prominent in brownies. Opt for real chocolate bars instead of chocolate chips. Chocolate chips contain stabilizers and are designed to retain their shape when baked, making them less suitable for recipes that require melted chocolate.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-by-Step Instructions
Begin by melting the butter in a microwave-safe bowl.
Add the chopped chocolate. (You can just break it apart with your hands; no need to dirty a cutting board.)
Whisk until the chocolate is melted. The heat of the butter should be enough to melt the chocolate completely, but if not, heat the mixture in the microwave for 20 seconds or so and whisk again.
Meanwhile, whisk the eggs in a large bowl.
Add the sugars, salt and vanilla.
And whisk to combine.
Whisk in the chocolate-butter mixture.
Then add the flour.
Whisk until just combined.
Line a 9×13-in baking pan with parchment paper, then either spray the paper with non-stick cooking spray or grease with butter. Be sure to leave an overhang; this makes it easy to lift brownies out of the pan before cutting. Pour the brownie batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the top has formed a shiny crust and the batter is moderately firm.
Cool completely on a rack, then use the parchment overhang to transfer the un-cut brownies to a cutting board.
Use a sharp knife to trim the hard edges (those are for the cook!).
Cut the brownies into squares and enjoy!
Frequently Asked Questions
To keep brownies fresh, store them in an airtight container at room temperature. They typically keep well for up to 4 days. Brownies can also be frozen for up to 3 months. After they are completely cooled, cut them into squares, wrap tightly in foil, and then place them in an airtight container or sealable plastic bag. Thaw overnight on the countertop before serving.
Absolutely! You can customize your brownies by adding a variety of mix-ins. Popular choices include chopped nuts (like walnuts or pecans) or chocolate chips or chunks.
The main reason cocoa powder is often used in brownie recipes is due to its convenience and ease of use. Cocoa powder, being a dry ingredient, can be easily measured, and it eliminates the extra step of melting chocolate. However, in my opinion, brownies made with melted chocolate are far superior—fudgier, denser, and just much more delicious!
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Video Tutorial
The Best Brownie Recipe
If you’ve been searching for the ultimate homemade brownie recipe, look no further. This is it!
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (½ pound) unsalted butter
- 8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped (I use Ghirardelli bars)
- 4 large eggs
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled off with knife
Instructions
- Set the rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Line a 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan with parchment paper (bring parchment up sides of pan so there is a slight overhang) and grease with butter or nonstick cooking spray.
- Place the butter in a medium microwave-safe bowl and melt in the microwave until bubbling. Add the chocolate and whisk until the chocolate is completely melted. The heat from the butter should be enough to melt the chocolate completely, but if not, place the chocolate-butter mixture in the microwave and heat for 20 seconds or so, then whisk again. (Alternatively, combine the butter and chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until melted.)
- Whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Add the salt, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla; whisk until smooth (be sure no lumps of brown sugar remain). Whisk in the chocolate-butter mixture, then add the flour and whisk until the batter is uniform.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the top has formed a shiny crust and the batter is moderately firm. Cool completely in the pan on a rack. If not serving right away, store them at room temperature, for 3 to 4 days. To extend their shelf life for a day or two, you can refrigerate them.
- To cut brownies, first lift them out of the pan using the parchment overhang and transfer them to a cutting board. Separate the parchment from the edges. Using a sharp knife, trim away the edges and cut the brownies into 2-in squares.
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions: The brownies can be frozen for up to 3 months. After they are completely cooled, cut them into squares, wrap tightly in foil, and then place them in an airtight container or sealable plastic bag. Thaw overnight on the countertop before serving.
Nutrition Information
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- Serving size: 1 brownie
- Calories: 212
- Fat: 11g
- Saturated fat: 7g
- Carbohydrates: 27g
- Sugar: 22g
- Fiber: 1g
- Protein: 2g
- Sodium: 66mg
- Cholesterol: 51mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Hi Jenn!
I am a super fan of yours!
will try this recipe with my kids. can we add nuts? pecan or walnut? if so, at what stage should I mix it?
Awww… thanks Elly! 💗
Yes, you can definitely add nuts of your choosing to these. (I’d coarsely chop them and add them to the batter right before you pour it into the baking pan. Hope you enjoy!
Easily the best brownies we’ve ever had – I’m embarrassed to say how quickly the pan was finished! 😁
Hi Jenn, I am totally out of butter, would I be able to substitute oil in your recipes. If so how much? Once again thank you for a great recipe.
Hi Barbara, This recipe has a lot of butter, so I’m not really sure how substituting oil would impact it. Do you happen to have margarine on hand? If so, I’d use that before using oil.
Hi Jenn,
Please don’t recommend using margarine. The stuff is toxic and very bad for our health. It would be better for the person asking to try olive oil in equal measure and come up with something edible but not quite the recipe than to purchase or use margarine. If anyone has margarine in their home they should throw it away. Margarine has trans fats that are poison for us. This isn’t an exaggeration. It is unhealthy for other reasons, low in good fats, hydrogenated, high heat processed and carcinogenic. Even so called “conservative” health advocates recognize that margarine is very bad.
I otherwise love your blog and will be making these brownies (with butter 🙂 later today.
I was just wondering if it would be okay to use salted butter instead of unsalted? Would I have to lower the amount of butter used or should I be okay?
Hi Angelina, While it varies by brand, most salted butter has approximately 1/4 tsp. salt per stick, so you can use the salted butter and reduce the salt in the recipe as needed. Hope that helps and that you enjoy the brownies!
These are wonderful. I can’t keep my husband away from them. My oven must run hot because I checked after 33 minutes and they were done.
Hi Jenn,
I only have a 9×9 pan. Kind of dumb, but will the batter hold if I bake one pan at a time?
Thanks!
Not dumb! While it’s not optimal for rising for the batter to sit for a while after it’s made, it should work. Hope you enjoy!
Fabulousness
Hello Jenn. I’m a fan of your recipes and have tried some of them with success. I’m thinking to give this one a try but I only have light brown sugar at hand, will it give similar results? How much light born sugar should I use if I will follow the rest of the ingredients list as in your full recipe? If I would like to reduce the light brown sugar volume, by how much can I do so without disturbing much of the final product quality?
Hope you can advise soon. Thank you in advance.
Hi Agatha, light brown sugar will work here with no other modifications necessary. If you want to cut the brown sugar by a bit, you could cut about 1/4 cup and still get good results. Hope that helps!
Oh my goodness are these brownies the bomb! I was a bit nervous to make these based off other people’s reviews but honestly I don’t know what the heck those people are used to except it’s probably found in a gas station.
I followed Jen’s recommendation to add an extra 1/4 cup flour to make them more cakey which worked wonderfully. I also added 1 cup of chopped walnuts. Amazing!!!
I did spend extra time getting air bubbles in the batter by stirring it extra. Jen was right – that’s what gets the cracks on the top of the cooked brownies.
I freezed the leftovers and they were just as good once thawed. Jen killed it with this one.
Hi,
I’ve tried this recipe and it’s fantastic.i was wondering if we could give it some icing/ frosting??
Can you please help me with that.
Thank you in advance.
Warm regards,
Deepti.
Glad you like these! Because they’re so rich, I don’t think you really need frosting for these, but the chocolate ganache from this recipe would work nicely. I’d love to hear how they turn out if you try it with this!
Omg these were the best tasting brownies I’ve had in years thanks. for the recipe.
Not even close to the best brownies I’ve ever made. They came out perfectly—but I found the flavor to be Just so so, and I used very good—Scharffen Berger) chocolate. I’ll stick to Cook’s Baking book for brownies going foreard!
Pam I’m curious as to whether you have a better recipe? I’d love to try both yours and Jens to do a side-by-side side comparison.