Candy Cane Brownies Recipe - Fab Everyday (2024)

FAQs

Is it cheaper to buy brownie mix or make from scratch? ›

A clever hybrid between cake and cookie, brownies are a dense, chocolaty bar cookie baked in a rectangular pan; they can be fudge-like, cake-like, or anything in between. It was about three times more expensive to make the brownies from scratch than to use a mix, owing mostly to the cost of chocolate and walnuts.

For great brownie texture, avoid overmixing your batter.

Overmixing your batter can cause you to incorporate too much air into the brownies, leading to a change in texture. According to Food52, you want to mix any batter until it forms a uniform dough, no more and no less.

Add a teaspoon of instant coffee or espresso powder. Throw in a handful of nuts—pecans, walnuts, macadamia, whatever you have on hand. Scoop in a palmful of dried or frozen fruit. Add an extra splash of the top-shelf vanilla extract, or a dab of vanilla paste, or a dash of vanilla powder, to the batter.

In addition to keeping your brownie mix fresh, refrigerating brownie batter can also help boost the overall texture and flavor of the treat. Refrigerating helps improve the gloss and crustiness of brownies while simultaneously blending the flavors—the result? — brownie that tastes much richer and chewier.

Most brownie mixes call for water. While water does the job, you can add some extra flavor and moisture by mixing some of that water with something richer, like milk. If you want to swap it out completely, be prepared for a more chewy and fudge-like brownie from the extra fat.

One change is to use milk or heavy cream instead of water. This change will make brownies more moist and gooey since milk is more fatty and flavorful than water. A second change is to use butter instead of oil. For similar reasons to using milk, butter adds a rich and more decadent quality to the batter.

Fudgy brownies have a higher fat-to-flour ratio than cakey ones. So add more fat—in this case, butter and chocolate. A cakey batch has more flour and relies on baking powder for leavening. The amount of sugar and eggs does not change whether you're going fudgy or cakey.

Alice Medrich, author of Seriously Bitter Sweet: The Ultimate Dessert Maker's Guide to Chocolate, writes that “refrigerating the brownie batter in the pan for several hours, or as long as two days before baking, wreaks enormous transformations: it improves the top gloss and crustiness, and it also blends the flavors so ...

The brownies will continue to set as they cool. This recipe must be served after they've cooled to room temperature completely. In fact, they solidify into even more fudgy brownie bits if you chill them in the fridge before slicing and serving.

Brownie recipes traditionally call for water as it serves as a neutral liquid that hydrates the dry ingredients. However, using milk instead of water can impart a creamier texture and richer flavor to your brownies. The milk's fat content adds a smoothness that water cannot provide, resulting in a more indulgent treat.

What does adding an extra egg to brownie mix do? ›

If you want to get a little more creative with your brownie mix hacks, add an extra egg to the batter. The extra protein will help thicken up the batter and make it fluffier, creating a more decadent, fudgy texture. You can also add the yolk by itself in addition to the 2 eggs a box brownie mix typically calls for.

The trick: Replace the water with coffee. You don't need much, generally ¼ to ⅓ cup. We already know that adding espresso and coffee flavor to chocolate desserts supercharges chocolate flavor, and the same principle applies here. Using coffee in your brownie mix will result in better, more chocolaty brownies.

In brownies, both butter and oil will offer a moist, tender texture, but only butter will give the dish the aeration needed for rising brownies well. If you use a cake brownie, butter is a better option because it helps rise the batter. For denser, fudge type brownies, oil is permissable.

After greasing the pan, many bakers like to line it with pieces of parchment paper or aluminum foil that have been cut larger than the size of the pan so that the edges hang over the sides like a sling. Thoroughly grease the lining.

When you add the cost of an egg, 1/2 cup vegetable oil and a cup of chopped nuts, brownies costs about 16 cents each. It will take about 50 minutes to make the mix. — From scratch, the cost for 30 brownies with nuts is $3.65, or about 12 cents a brownie. It will take 70 minutes if you follow the recipe.

The box mix is about $1.50 cheaper and requires less effort, energy, and attention.

The only difference is the intensity of the chocolate and overall richness. For my recipe, it has a slightly deeper chocolate flavor due to the use of both real chocolate and cocoa powder. My brownies also have that same airy quality to them as box mix brownies, but with a more dense texture.

The chocolate comes from cocoa powder, which gives box brownies a lighter, less rich chocolate flavor than the homemade variety. Most people say brownies from a mix remind them of childhood. What is this? Of course mixes vary, and some include packets of chocolate sauce that give the brownies a denser, richer taste.