Starting with Tasty:
https://tasty.co/recipe/the-best-fudgy-brownies
Which everyone seems to love, however I halved the quantities and didn’t sufficiently reduce the baking time, so they were overcooked rendering them officially “not brownies” and basically just underwhelming chocolate cakes… The chocolate flavour didn’t blow me away, so I didn’t rush to repeat and instead moved to Babish:
https://basicswithbabish.co/basicsepisodes/brownies
Specifically the chewy, fudgy version. Which itself may have been a mistake as I’m now thinking the final, melty version may be close to a decent brownie conclusion… Nontheless. The fudgy brownie has a lovely texture, provided by the oil, but is so low on chocolate it is almost not a brownie. It’s also a little sickly, and I don’t think has enough flour.
I then went back to my previous faithful, the Tartine brownie. The simplest, and actually very similar to the Tasty brownie with some of the fancy bits removed.
It’s reliable and great.
I think it might be a bit too intense with the chocolate I’m using, so if cocoa content > 70% perhaps dropping the amount a touch may be beneficial.
Also adding chocolate chunks to the mix is just the right move, I think.
Perhaps a merge between the the Tasty and Tartine brownies next?
With just a little oil replacing a little butter to edge towards the fudginess of the Babish brownie?
These are worth thinking about.
There are additional conclusions to make across the board, however:
- Brownies are tasty straight out of the oven – Fact.
- Brownie’s taste even better if left alone for several hours then either eaten at room temperature or reheated.
- So out of the oven cover them and put in the fridge overnight, no matter what?
Additionally, there may be something in covering the made batter and leaving in the fridge pre-baking. Certainly worth experimenting with.
The Brian Lagerstrom brownie looks a little like what I’m proposing here for a pre-written option: https://www.brianlagerstrom.com/recipes/fudgy-brownies-3-ways
I also think amount of flour is a super interesting thing to consider.
I feel I should also point this out: https://www.thepancakeprincess.com/best-brownie-bake-off/
Which seemingly has done a lot of leg work to compare numerous brownies. Only I feel like we’re looking for intrinsically different things, so I’m not sure the rankings work. Nontheless informative and worth trying the brownies that are apparently so much better than Tartine’s.