Melted butter beaten with sugar, then eggs, flour and cocoa, with walnuts folded through and forty minutes in the oven. Dusted with powdered sugar and cut into squares. Makes a full tray.
A tray, not four servings
The card had this at four servings. One cup of flour, two cups of sugar, 180 grams of butter, four eggs and 100 grams of walnuts is a full baking tray, and dividing it four ways gives each person a slab of about 200 grams.
Twelve squares is a normal cut, sixteen if you want them small. That is now what the card says.
Cool it before cutting
This is the single most common way to spoil a tray of brownies. They come out of the oven, they look set at the edges and soft in the middle, and the knife goes in.
What comes out is a smeared mess, and it gets blamed on underbaking. Brownies carry on setting as they cool, and the middle firms up considerably in the first half hour out of the oven. Wait until the tray is cool to the touch and the knife will go through cleanly.
Forty minutes is a long bake
At 175°C for forty minutes, with half a tablespoon of baking powder in the batter, this is a cakey brownie: risen, firm, with a proper crumb rather than a molten centre.
That is a legitimate style and it is what this recipe is. It is worth saying because a lot of people who search for brownies want the dense fudgy kind, and pulling this one out early will not produce that. It will just produce a raw middle.
The powdered sugar nobody used
It sat in the ingredient list without appearing in a single step. Anyone following the recipe bought a bag and never opened it.
It goes over the top, once the tray is completely cold, just before cutting. Dust a warm brownie and the sugar melts into the surface and disappears.
More chocolate
- Chocolate dessert — cold set, no oven.
- Chocolate chip cookies — the other tray bake.
- Chocolate bonbons — no baking at all.
- Carrot cake — the same tin, a different batter.
Brownies FAQ
A full tray, around twelve squares. The card used to say four servings, which for a recipe with a cup of flour, two cups of sugar, 180 grams of butter and four eggs would mean roughly 200 grams of brownie each.
Cakey. Forty minutes at 175°C with baking powder in the batter gives a firm, risen brownie rather than a dense molten one. Shortening the bake will not turn this recipe into the fudgy kind; that is a different formula.
Once they are completely cool. A brownie straight from the oven is still setting, and a knife through it drags and tears, which is why so many trays look underbaked when they are not.
Dusting the top before serving. It appears in the ingredient list and never once in the method, which is why anyone following the old version bought it and never used it.
No. Powdered sugar on a warm brownie dissolves into the surface and vanishes within a minute. Wait until the tray is cold.
Yes, and nothing else changes. A hundred grams is what the recipe calls for, folded in at the end with the vanilla.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup flour (sifted)
- 2 cups sugar
- 180 g butter (melted)
- ½ cup cocoa
- 4 eggs
- ½ tablespoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 100 g walnuts (chopped)
- Powdered sugar (for dusting)
Notas
Instructions
- Melt the butter and beat it with the sugar.
- Add the eggs, the sifted flour, the cocoa and the baking powder, a little at a time, beating as you go.
- Once everything is combined, fold in the walnuts and the vanilla extract.
- Grease a tin with butter and pour the mixture in, levelling the top.
- Bake at 175°C (350°F) for 40 minutes.
- Take it out, let it stand until it is cool enough to cut, dust with powdered sugar and cut into squares.
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