One-bowl fudgy brownies
Crackly on top, fudgy in the middle, and stirred together in one bowl with cocoa and melted butter, no mixer needed.
- 70 min total
- 12 min hands-on
- Anyone can make this
- Serves 9
- About $0.41 a serving
- 230 calories
- Good the next day
- Vegetarian
Dolly says: Make the full amount. Whatever’s left keeps for tomorrow.
Ingredients
For 9 servings.
- 1 stick butter
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup chocolate chips (optional)
From your pantry
- 1 cup sugar
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
Each serving has about 230 calories, 3 g protein, 29 g carbs and 12 g fat, and costs about $0.41 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No butter? Ghee works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
the oven to 350°F. an 8-inch square pan and with , leaving the paper hanging over two sides.
Preheat. Preheating means turning the oven on before you start, so it’s fully hot when the food goes in. Food that starts in a cold oven cooks unevenly and doesn’t brown the same.
How you’ll know: The oven beeps or its light clicks off, usually 10 to 15 minutes after you turn it on.
Grease. Greasing means rubbing a thin layer of butter or oil over the inside of a pan so food doesn’t stick. Get into the corners, where batter likes to cling.
How you’ll know: The pan looks evenly shiny all over, with no dry patches and nothing pooling in the bottom.
Line a pan. Lining a pan means covering the bottom, and often the sides, with parchment paper or foil before the food goes in. Leave the paper hanging over two sides, and you can lift bars or brownies out in one piece to cut them neatly.
How you’ll know: The paper lies flat against the bottom, with flaps sticking up on two sides like handles.
Parchment paper. Parchment paper is a nonstick, oven-safe paper for lining pans. Food lifts right off and cleanup is easy, but don’t swap in wax paper or put parchment under the broiler.
How you’ll know: It lies flat in the pan, and the food slides off when you lift it.
Dolly’s tip: The paper flaps are handles. They let you lift the whole slab out and cut neat squares.Microwave the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl in 30-second bursts until , about 1 minute.
Melt. Melting means gently heating something solid, like butter or cheese, until it turns liquid. Low or medium heat keeps it from browning or burning.
How you’ll know: It’s smooth and liquid, and butter may foam a little but hasn’t turned brown.
Timer: 1 min
Dolly’s tip: Lay a paper towel over the bowl. Butter likes to pop.the sugar, cocoa and salt into the warm butter until it looks like glossy wet sand.
Whisk. Whisking means beating quickly with a whisk or a fork to blend things together. It smooths out lumps and mixes eggs, oil or sauces evenly.
How you’ll know: It all looks one even color and texture, with no streaks or lumps.
in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, until the batter turns smooth and shiny.
Whisk. Whisking means beating quickly with a whisk or a fork to blend things together. It smooths out lumps and mixes eggs, oil or sauces evenly.
How you’ll know: It all looks one even color and texture, with no streaks or lumps.
Dolly’s tip: Whisk hard for 30 seconds after the second egg. That’s what gives brownies a crackly top.the flour into the cup, then stir it in with a spatula shows. the chocolate chips if you’re using them.
Spoon and level. Spoon and level is how to measure flour: spoon it lightly into the measuring cup, then sweep the extra off the top with the back of a knife. Scooping straight from the bag packs in too much flour and makes bakes dry and heavy.
How you’ll know: The flour sits flat and even with the rim, and you never pressed it down or tapped the cup.
Just combined. Mixing until just combined means stopping the moment the dry flour disappears into the batter. More stirring makes cakes, brownies and muffins tough, so a few small lumps are fine.
How you’ll know: No streaks of dry flour are left, but the batter still looks a little lumpy, and that’s right.
Fold. Folding means mixing gently by scooping from the bottom and turning it over the top, instead of stirring hard. It keeps light mixtures airy and soft things like berries or herbs in one piece.
How you’ll know: You use slow, wide strokes and stop as soon as there are no streaks left.
Food safety: Don’t eat raw dough or batter, not even a lick of the spoon. Raw flour can carry E. coli and raw eggs can carry salmonella until they’re cooked. The one exception is dough with no eggs, made with flour heated to 165°F.
Spread the batter into the corners of the pan and bake 22 to 26 minutes, until a poked in the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs.
Toothpick test. The toothpick test tells you whether a cake or brownie is baked through: poke a toothpick into the middle and pull it out. Wet batter on it means it needs more time.
How you’ll know: For cakes it comes out clean or with a crumb or two; for fudgy brownies, a few moist crumbs but no wet batter. A thin knife works too.
Timer: 22 min
Dolly’s tip: Wet batter on the toothpick means a few more minutes. Sticky crumbs mean fudgy and done.Food safety: For the safest eggs, cook until the whites are fully set and the yolks begin to thicken. Dishes made with eggs are done at 160°F.
Cool the pan for at least 30 minutes, then lift the brownies out by the paper and cut into 9 squares.
Cool on a rack. Cooling on a rack means setting a hot pan or fresh cookies on a wire grid, so air moves underneath and the bottom doesn’t steam and turn soggy. No rack? The cool grates of your stovetop work the same way.
How you’ll know: The bottom of the pan feels barely warm when you touch it, and bars cut cleanly instead of crumbling.
Timer: 30 min
Dolly’s tip: Warm brownies smear when you cut them. Waiting is the hardest step.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop picks a dessert for treat night, puts what you need on the week’s grocery list, and walks you through each step.
