Gingerbread Brownies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Is butter or oil better for brownies? ›

Oil Brownies: These were chewier with crunchier edges and a crunchier topping. They were more matte on top with a far less crinkly shiny brownie 'skin. ' They tasted more like box mix brownies. Butter Brownies: These were much fudgier, softer, and had a melt-in-your-mouth texture.

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.

Adding a layer of cream cheese, marshmallow fluff, caramel, or peanut butter goes a long way towards turning a mix into something special. You can add this layer before or after baking the brownies.

Use Milk Instead of Water

Replace it with a richer, more flavorful liquid, such as milk, buttermilk or coconut milk. The extra fat from the milk will turn a normal box of brownies into a moist and gooey treat.

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.

So what happens is that the oil-based cake or brownie can seem more fudgy and less cake-like. Then if you're melting the butter with the chocolate and mixing it, or if you're creaming it, the texture of the brownie is going to be quite different.

If you opt to add more eggs, say double the amount, something interesting happens. Even though you are adding more moisture, the air bubbles that you catch in the extra eggs add volume, which decreases the density of your final product. This makes your brownies rise and gives them a much more cake-like texture.

Using airtight wrappings (including using plastic wrap right against the brownies) is key to keeping your brownies fresh, whether you're keeping them at room temperature for short-term storage, or planning to freeze them so you can have a fresh brownie ready whenever you need it.

Add more chocolate.

It's easy to bring even more chocolatey goodness to brownies when you throw in a handful of chocolate chips. Choose from semi-sweet, dark chocolate, white chocolate, or a combination of all three. You can even find morsels in different flavors, like peanut butter, mint, or cinnamon.

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 ...

Do you beat eggs before adding to brownie mix? ›

Cookbook author and food stylist Jerrelle Guy might have given away the secret: In an article for The Kitchn, Guy suggests the secret to a "glossy" and lifted brownie — like the ones you see in bakeries and restaurants — is to beat the eggs and the sugar together for 10 minutes before adding additional ingredients.

Flavor-wise, the ones baked from refrigerated batter did taste a little more intense — richer, more chocolate-y.

Replacing Oil with Butter

It couldn't be easier to substitute butter for oil using a 1:1 ratio. This should work with olive, canola, vegetable, and coconut oils. Simply melt and cool the butter to room temperature, then continue with your recipe. (If the recipe calls for ½ cup oil, use ½ cup melted and cooled butter.)

Various causes include overbaking, underbaking, cutting the brownies too quickly, and lacking oil and fluid contents in the recipe.

Most boxed mixes call for vegetable oil, which gives brownies a lighter texture and more neutral flavor. To make them taste homemade, try substituting equal amounts of melted butter for the oil. This is my number one tip because the butter will add a richness both in flavor and texture.

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.

It couldn't be easier to substitute butter for oil using a 1:1 ratio. This should work with olive, canola, vegetable, and coconut oils. Simply melt and cool the butter to room temperature, then continue with your recipe. (If the recipe calls for ½ cup oil, use ½ cup melted and cooled butter.)

Swap an equal amount of butter for the oil called for on the box's recipe to take your brownies from good to wow. The difference between the two ingredients is that oil really doesn't add much when it comes to flavor, while butter will make your brownies richer and denser.