What Makes Brownies Fudgy (And Why Yours Aren’t)

Everybody loves a fudge brownie but sometimes the results can be dry and cakey. Hi I'm Gemma Stafford, professional chef with over 20 years experience and I went into my bold baking test kitchen and I came up with the perfect tips and formula for you at home to get fudgy brownies every time. So our first tip for a fudgy brownie we're going to talk eggs. Eggs not only add moisture but they also add fat giving you a denser brownie and here's a tip I just learned. Usually we say room temperature eggs when we're baking, cold eggs give you a fudgy brownie which is a fantastic tip I never knew that. So the brownies I'm making are 9 by 13 pan which is really big and we're just using four eggs. So you can use eggs or even for even fudgier you can use just yolks and that will provide more fat which will give you that moisture texture that we're looking for. This amount of eggs is the perfect amount to keep your brownie moist without giving you a dry cakey crumb which is what we're trying to avoid completely. Tip number two let's talk sugar. Now this is so important and actually really interesting. So I use a mix of white sugar and brown sugar. Brown sugar has more moisture than white sugar because if you've ever made my substitute for brown sugar you know that it's plain sugar mixed with a little bit of molasses. The reason it's so sticky is because it has more moisture. That extra bit of moisture rather than just using white sugar makes a world of difference and gives you that dense texture. So here's the science around the sugar. You need a higher ratio of sugar compared to flour to give you that texture that we're looking for in the middle. In my recipe for best ever brownies my sugar quantity is double the amount of flour so you're getting extra fudge in there. And sticking on a scientific note sugar actually attracts and binds moisture so it's holding it in there for us. We always think about adding sweetness but for most of our recipes it adds moisture and a lot more. Also when it comes to brown sugar I love to use a dark brown sugar which means extra flavor, more molasses, more caramel tones. It really does make a difference to the flavor of your brownie. So our next tip is talking about the fat. Fat quantity. Fudge brownies rely on a high fat recipe. High fat to little flour. The rule is two times the amount of fat to one times the amount of flour. And you can use different fats. Lots of recipes call for different things. My best ever brownies call for melted butter. A lot of melted butter. I really like truly Irish butter that's imported into America and I use salted for that extra bit of flavor. One of the reasons for using melted butter is that when your brownies are baked and they have set and chilled the butter will solidify giving you that firm fudge brownie that's something you can really bite into. My recipe to introduce even more fat is to add two tablespoons of oil. Now when I'm talking fat I'm not just talking butter and oil I'm also talking melted chocolate so if your recipe calls for melted chocolate that's still another addition of fat so remember that. So why am I using two oils? It's a very good question. Unlike butter, oil is 100% fat. Butter contains water and oil actually will prevent gluten formation giving you a more tender brownie which is really something that we want with a fudge brownie. You can use vegetable oil, coconut oil. What I like to do is actually use a little bit of olive oil which adds extra flavor and is really good quality. After the fat I add in a little bit of salt and vanilla extract. These are both for flavor they don't contribute to the texture just to the yummy flavor. With a hand whisk we're just going to whisk all these ingredients together. You want everything in the one place here. So tip number four we are moving on to flour and you've already heard me say this when it comes to the sugar in the butter we want minimal amount of flour to give you a fudge brownie. Too much flour causes too much texture too much structure and we don't want that and we want it to remain you know firm but with a soft bite. A small amount of flour ensures that your brownies remain dense. So the flour that we want to use is unbleached all-purpose flour. So all-purpose will provide structure but it won't make them airy and it won't make them tough. Here's the thing we don't want you're probably thinking well then why don't I use cake flour because that makes everything soft. It's like yes it does make everything soft but it'll make it cakey and it'll make it light so we don't want that. We want to have that little bit of structure. Now do not add bread flour either because it has too much protein in it. Now if you're an avid baker and have a digital scale you know that accuracy is important when it comes to our recipes so if you really want to get that perfect ratio use one of these guys. On BiggerBolderBaking.com for all of my recipes I give cups grams and ounces because I live in America but I used to live in Ireland. In Europe we use grams and ounces here we use cups. I want to make sure everybody has access to my recipes. So sticking in the flour realm let's talk about cocoa powder in brownie recipes. I think it's really important for a fudge brownie but using cocoa powder takes up some space that you might have used for all-purpose flour giving you less structure less gluten. When it comes to cocoa powder please use good quality and use unsweetened that's really important. So now let's talk raising agents or lack of. For a fudge brownie we do not want raising agents in there. Your recipe shouldn't call for them because what happens is they create air bubbles you know they start a chemical reaction they create air bubbles and those air bubbles make your brownie texture cakey and light and we don't want that we want it dense. So in the world of brownies if you want a fudgy brownie no leavening agent. If you are a cakey brownie person and I do have cakey brownies and chewy brownies on BiggerBolderBaking.com and for cakey your recipe will call for raising agent it's really important but right now see you later. So tip number six is mixing and you want minimal mixing so you do not mix it on a stand mixer do it by hand with a whisk mix it until it's just combined there's no lumps and then stop. Over mixing will create air bubbles and it will whip up the eggs too much where it starts to become really cakey. Now if you've seen my video for chewy brownies we whip and whip and whip and whip to get that texture and to get a cakey brownie so we do not want to do that here. We're also not trying to develop gluten here. So that's it you've got all our ingredients in there get it into your 9 by 13 pan. Reminder this is my best ever brownie recipe it's called best ever for a reason I don't hand out that title lightly and when it's baked you will see why. To finish I scatter some chocolate on top. Okay we have done everything we possibly can do to give us the best fudgy brownies let's get them into the oven and wait and see. So while the brownies are baking I'm gonna cover some questions that we got to the Bold Baking Hotline. Kim Hollenbeck asked a really good question can you freeze brownies once they're baked and you know when and for how long? So all the brownie batches that I have here today are all going in my freezer because I have a six year old and we have friends over and picnics and parties and all those things. Bake your brownies you can put them in an airtight container put parchment between each layer and they can be frozen for up to eight weeks if not longer. Brownies defrost beautifully if you want you warm them through in the oven or the microwave for a little bit but honestly you can defrost them at room temperature and eat them and they will be perfect. This next question is a fantastic one and really important they ask can I change the size of my baking pan? I'm doing 9x13 maybe you want to use that in an 8x8. Can you? Yes you can but you have to factor in a time change now you've got more batter in a smaller pan they're going to take longer to bake. This next question came in I thought it was a really good one to follow that every time I bake my brownies the edges end up crispy but raw in the middle and how do I fix this? So timing is everything I bake my best ever brownies at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 minutes and what we're looking for is a jiggle in the middle maybe it might look like it's raw in the middle but once it sets and goes cold so let me show you exactly what I mean by that let's go into the oven and that last question brings me to tip number seven baking time this is so important when it comes to brownies what you're looking for is that jiggle in the middle now what that means is that when you shake the pan the batter in the middle the edges are kind of set but it's still a bit wobbly in the middle and if you put your finger it feels soft underneath your finger what that means is that we've got a little bit baked around the outside but as you get to the center it's more and more moist less baked more fudge and the thing about it is when you take it out of the oven that jiggle will disappear as the brownies sit they cool down at room temperature and they will set remember that butter that we put in there that's all going to solidify when this goes cold so you have to factor in that once you take them out of the oven you're still going to continue to bake for a few more minutes out of the oven because of the eggs and all those things factoring all that in and just knowing what to look for that jiggle will give you the perfect texture and can I give you a little tip actually that I just started doing recently and I found works really well once I bake a batch of brownies I do it the day before I need them once they're cooled I put them into the fridge take them out the next day and it is just solid fudge so like don't be afraid to bake them the day before the flavor will be better and the texture will be better okay so this is the moment of truth in the video I have some fudge brownies that I made that have set I have some cakey brownies and I have some chewy brownies let's go see if there's a real difference and see if all the tips that I did really worked so here we have it folks the final reveal and guess what my fudgy formula worked these look absolutely fantastic we have a cakey one here that you can see has more flour has more air and it's more like a cake like structure over here we have chewy chewy has been mixed more and it's a little bit tougher because we mixed all the ingredients harder it also can contain raising agents in the middle is our hero absolute ultimate fudgy brownie all of those tips added up to the perfect fudgy formula the next time you go to make your brownies if you use all of my tips you will get the perfect fudgy formula every time no matter what brownie recipe you use I hope you enjoyed this video of breaking down exactly what gives you a fudgy brownie thank you so much for watching I'll be back here again same time same place next week