College dorm kitchens aren’t known to be the most well-stocked or cooking-friendly of spaces, but this brownie recipe only needs a pot, a baking pan and an oven to turn your basic brownie ingredients into dense chocolate heaven. The secret to these brownies is browning (hah, get it?) the butter in a saucepan instead of melting it in the microwave, which gives these treats a subtle nutty caramelized note to compliment the rich cocoa flavor of the brownie.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Servings: 16 brownies
Photo by Russell Escalada
Ingredients:
10 tablespoons (1 ¼ stick) butter
1 ¼ cups sugar
¾ cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
2 teaspoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
⅓ cup flour
Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 325ºF and grease your pan with cooking spray.
Spoon pro tip: If you have tinfoil, line the pan with tinfoil and then grease the tinfoil—the brownies come out of the pan easier and there’s no pan clean up required.
Photo by Russell Escalada
2. On medium-high heat, melt the butter in a medium-sized pot or saucepan (All of the batter’s going to be made in this pot, so make sure it’s big enough.)
Photo by Russell Escalada
3. Heat and stir the butter until it stops foaming and brown bits form on the bottom of the pan. Make sure to scrape these flavored packed bits off the pan and into the melted butter. This will take about 5 minutes.
Photo by Russell Escalada
4. Take the pan off the heat. Slowly pour the sugar and the cocoa powder into the butter while stirring vigorously.
Spoon tip: Be careful not to add it too quickly or you’ll end up with a giant clump of buttered sugar. Instead, you should see a smoother consistency with some lumps.
Photo by Russell Escalada
5. Wait 3-5 minutes for the mixture to cool (the pan should be cool enough for you to comfortably touch the exterior).
Photo by Russell Escalada
6. Whisk in the water, vanilla extract, and eggs.
Photo by Russell Escalada
7. Gradually add the flour and incorporate it into the batter using only 60 strokes or less (this keeps the brownies super rich and dense).
Photo by Russell Escalada
8. Pour the batter into your brownie pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick through the center of the brownies comes up with only a few moist crumbs.
Photo by Russell Escalada
9. Cool (if you can wait) and enjoy your fudgy deliciousness as the rest of your dorm watches with envy.
Photo by Russell Escalada
Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit