Thick, chewy, and utterly delicious—these Homemade Brownies outshine any store-bought mix. Dive into a batch and you’ll never look back!
These homemade brownies, well, they’re are a game changer. After lots of taste testing I finally perfected the recipe bringing decadent homemade brownies to your kitchen. First of all they’re so easy to make. And they’re relatively quick too! I don’t like making a huge mess in the kitchen and I hate that brownies take so long to bake! This recipe requires melting the butter and the sugar together in the microwave and needs only 25 minutes to bake!
Chock-full of chocolatey goodness, these brownies have just the right amount of chew and softness. Your taste buds will thank you, trust me! For more chocolate heaven, try Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Double Chocolate Muffins, and Double Chocolate Silk Pie
Table of Contents
Reasons to Love These Brownies
- Homemade Brownies are baked fresh, offering a warm, comforting taste that can’t be matched by store-bought varieties.
- This easy brownie recipe is customizable. You can add nuts, caramel, or extra chocolate to suit your taste preferences.
- Baking brownies fill the house with an inviting, delicious scent.
Recipe Ingredients
- Butter: I prefer using unsalted butter for baking, but if you like the flavor of a little extra salt, you’re welcome to use salted butter.
- Cocoa Powder: The best type of cocoa powder for a rich brownie is Hershey’s Special Dark Dutch-Processed Cocoa Powder. Dutch process powder provides a rich and smooth flavor. If you are not too worried about it, you can use a typical unsweetened natural cocoa powder.
- Chopped Chocolate: I love using a Ghirardelli baking bar for the semi-sweet chopped chocolate. It enhances the chocolatey experience with a gooey texture and robust flavor.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Variations
- Add-Ins: For a nutty crunch, mix in chopped walnuts or pecans into your brownie batter before baking. Another fun variation is to add Oreo chunks or edible cookie dough pieces into the mix. For those who enjoy a bit of color and extra sweetness, mixing in M&Ms or Reese’s Pieces adds a playful touch. Lastly, topping the batter with coconut flakes before baking gives the brownies a tropical flair and a slight chewiness.
- Sugar Variation: For a delightful twist on traditional brownies, consider using molasses or brown sugar instead of regular white sugar. Molasses will impart a rich, slightly smoky sweetness. Brown sugar, on the other hand, contributes a moist texture and a hint of caramel.
How to Make Homemade Brownies
Step 1: Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit (163 degrees Celsius). Line an 8×8″ pan with parchment or foil, and set aside.
Step 2: In a microwave-safe bowl, add the butter and sugar. Heat in the microwave on HIGH for about 1 minute and 15 seconds. Remove, stir, and cool on the counter for 5 minutes, then stir in the vanilla extract and cocoa powder.
Step 3: In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the warm (but not hot) butter/sugar mixture. With the mixing speed on low, add one egg at a time, mixing just until incorporated.
Step 4: In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt. With mixing speed on low, gradually add the dry ingredients. Mix until no flour pockets remain. Remove the bowl from the stand and fold in the chocolate chips and chunks.
Step 5: Spread the brownie batter evenly into the prepared pan. Place in the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes or until the brownies are set. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 30-45 minutes before cutting and serving.
Expert Tips
- Melting Butter: Melting the butter not only imparts a fudgy texture but also contributes to the shiny, crackly top characteristic of the best brownies.
- Mixing Technique: Avoid overmixing the batter after adding flour. Overmixing introduces too much air, which can make the brownies cakey instead of fudgy.
- Baking Time: Do not overbake the brownies. They should remain a bit soft in the center to ensure moist, fudgy brownies.
Frequently Asked Questions
To test for doneness, insert a toothpick into the center of the brownies; it should come out with lots of gooey crumbs. This indicates the brownies have achieved perfect fudginess.
Pre-cutting parchment paper to fit the pan exactly prevents the brownie batter from sticking and facilitates easier removal from the pan, ensuring your brownies are beautifully square and intact.
Cutting brownies can be tricky as they tend to get messy. The trick is to run a butter knife under hot water and dry it off before each cut. Clean the knife on a paper towel before making another cut. This method ensures clean slices without tearing the brownies.
Storage Info
STORE brownies in an airtight container at room temperature to keep them moist and chewy; they will stay fresh for up to 4 days. To FREEZE, wrap them tightly in plastic wrap and then in foil. You can freeze it in your freezer for up to 3 months.
To REHEAT, unwrap the brownies and microwave them on high for about 10-20 seconds, or until warm.
More Tasty Brownie Recipes to Try
Homemade Brownies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour*
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 11 tbsp unsalted butter - (1 stick +3 tbsp)
- 2 eggs - cold
- 1/8 tsp baking soda
- 1 tbsp cornstarch**
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips - milk or semisweet
- 1/4 cup semi-sweet baking bar* - chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit (163 degrees Celsius). Line an 8×8" pan with parchment or foil, and set aside.
- In a microwave-safe bowl, add the butter and sugar. Heat in the microwave on HIGH for about 1 minute and 15 seconds. Remove, stir, and cool on the counter for 5 minutes, then stir in the vanilla extract and cocoa powder.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the warm (but not hot) butter/sugar mixture. With the mixing speed on low, add one egg at a time, mixing just until incorporated.
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt. With mixing speed on low, gradually add the dry ingredients. Mix until no flour pockets remain. Remove the bowl from the stand and fold in the chocolate chips and chunks.
- Spread the brownie batter evenly into the prepared pan. Place in the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes or until the brownies are set. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 30-45 minutes before cutting and serving.
Made these today… They are smelling great. I doubled the recipe for a 9 X 13 pan and added the suggested 5 minutes… Yikes! They’re still runny! So far, I’ve added the 5 plus 10, plus 15, plus 10 and finally another 10! That’s 80 minutes. Call me crazy but that’s a LONG time to bake brownies.
Found you with Google, excited to have just made this as my first recipe from your site! The only adjustment I had to make was that it took 40 minutes to bake. (I already add +10 degrees since my oven runs cool.) They’re DELICIOUS & GOOEY! My only pet peeve, and this is true for so many sites — why don’t you list the ingredients in the order in which they’re used?? Sugar and butter should come first, etc. As it is, there seems to be no sense to the order. Anyway, I had to copy/paste the recipe to word processing and clean it up just to cook, and I don’t find too many worth the work, but liked this one enough to throw in my two cents. Guess I’ll visit a few more pages to see if it’s a trend… 🙂 Regardless, thanks so much for this one!
I always reorder the ingredients list to show them in the order they’ll be added too. It means I have less of a chance of leaving something out or adding something twice (which I’ve done… arrggghhh) with other recipes.
I’m going to try to make these brownies very soon, even though I’m on a diet, but I’ve got to figure out how to alter the recipe for low altitude (we’re at sea level or maybe 20 feet above at most). Based on a few sites, so far I’ve come up with increasing the sugar to 1 1/2 cups, reducing the egg to only one and using 1/2 tsp baking soda. Most high-low altitude adjustment baking sites say to decrease the flour by 1 Tbsp for a 3500 foot drop and another 1 Tbsp for each additional 1500 foot drop but since this recipe already has so little flour, I don’t if I want to mess with that. Most of the sites say to lower the oven temperature to 300 degrees and increase the baking time by 5-8 minutes. Can anyone offer any other advice? These look and sound YUMMY!
I was born and raised in New Orleans (6 feet BELOW sea level), and now live in upstate New York (945 feet above sea level), and I have never had to alter a recipe to accommodate altitude. Ever. But if it helps, I made these brownies in upstate NY exactly as the recipe says, and they came out perfect.
These look amazing. I tried them tonight. Not sure what I have done wrong…. Followed the recipe, used a glass pan and they came out runny. Cooked for an additional 7 then 5 minutes and turned up the oven to 350. They are cooling now but the toothpick comes out runny. I was afraid to cook longer. Any suggestions? Thanks
Have to say my did come out pretty good. I’m making them again today but with a dark pan not glass to see if that helps. These lasted 24 hours in the house
SUCCESS! Didn’t have cornstarch so used 2 extra tbsp of flour…probably could have done 3. They were delicious! Took approx 30min in oven. Used 9×9 glass because it is all I had. Will try next time with cornstarch and I can’t wait! My husband agreed that this recipe is a keeper! Oh yeah, also didn’t have bakers chocolate so used some ghiradelli dark chocolate chips I had in the pantry as a substitute. Delicious!
So happy to hear that… and I love that you used dark chocolate too!!
What kind of cocoa powder do you use?
I used Ghirardelli cocoa powder but I’ve also used Scharffen Berger too. Hope that helps!