Discussion
Here I’ll add the results of different brownie experiments that you’ve submitted so far. I’ll start with my own.
Whisking eggs & Creaming butter
Below is a photo of my results of the following test in which every brownie was made with the exact same recipe, but using a different process to make them.
The recipe was as follows:
- 350g molten dark chocolate
- 45g cocoa powder
- 65g all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 230g butter
- 300g granulated sugar
- 4 eggs
I pre-mixed the cocoa powder, flours and baking powder since those would all be added together in every recipe. Below I refer to that mixture as cocoa mix.
Brownie A
- cream butter + sugar
- add chocolate and cocoa mix
- add whisked eggs
Brownie B
- melt butter and chocolate
- add sugar
- add cocoa mix
- add whisked eggs
Brownie C
- cream butter + sugar
- add eggs and whisk until fluffy
- add chocolate and cocoa mix
Brownie D
- cream butter + sugar
- add all other ingredients
Brownie C clearly turned out best so it seems that properly cream butter + sugar and whisking in eggs until it’s light and fluffy is a good recipe to make a nice brownie top. I’ve since then been able to replicate method C in various other brownies.
Just adding whisked eggs does not seem to do the job. They seem to collapse too much, or not fold in properly to hold onto the structure.
So, what do you think? Let me know in the comments below!
Alex – testing out 6 in 1 go!
Perhaps foolishly, I attempted to test all 6 variations at once, from the base recipe of King Arthur’s ‘Fudge Brownies’. Of the variations, ‘refrigerate overnight’ was the only one that gave me a smooth shiny crust. A little bit of shine with ‘creamed butter and sugar’. Otherwise, pretty bubbly and rough tops.
Limitations:
– While I baked all 6 variations in one 9×13″ pan with foil dividers, I did prep the batters in sequence one after the other, preparing the more in-line all at once could help, as resting time of a batter is probably a variable.
– Possible difference in heat distribution with my pan divided into sections, the middle pieces could take longer to heat up compared to corners, probably better to only test 2 or 4 variations with a square pan in equal pieces like Annelie did.
– I made batter from the recipe cut into 1/4 sizes to reduce waste, but I imagine that can affect performance of batter, half size is probably the lowest you should go
– Thick batter may benefit from being smoothed out in the pan before baking, some of my thicker batters were pretty uneven
– My sugar didn’t seem to dissolve into melted butter well, even with butter heated up to 140ยบ F. Perhaps a side-effect of such small batch sizes, heat is lost quickly, or maybe my sugar is larger granule size than normal?
– Results may validate the ‘sugar must be well dissolved’ theory, I did notice the overnight rested batter had smoother texture than the rest.
Hi Alex,
Great experiment, you’ve got a fancy liner system worked out. How did you keep them all straight while adding in the batter (that’s been a struggle of mine…).
It’s clear that the one in the middle under is the one that’s rested, since it has the nice top. Just wondering, what are the other ones?
Top left – whisk 1 egg by itself until foamy, reserve till end
Top middle – sugar and butter creamed together
Top right – butter and chocolate melted together
Bottom left – added extra chocolate at end
Bottom middle – overnight rest
Bottom right – powdered sugar
5-layer thick heavy duty foil stayed pretty well upright. I did one wide foil liner to split the length of the pan, hit the pan with some oil spray and had a bent edge on the bottom of the foil to keep it upright. Then the top and bottom to split into thirds I basically made a big U-sling piece as the dividers there.