Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Ultra chocolaty. This recipe uses a combination of semisweet chocolate chips and unsweetened chocolate to give you a knockout punch of chocolaty goodness.
Texture: The best part. These brownies are thick, fudgy, and chewy. They are ultra-moist without feeling heavy and underbaked.
Ease: These brownies take slightly more work than some recipes, but I promise that fudgy consistency and ultra-crinkly crust are totally worth it.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: Brownie perfection.
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These Ultimate Brownies are the definition of FUDGY. As dense, rich, and fudgy as a brownie could be without actually being candy.
I’ve shared a LOT of Brownie Recipes throughout the years. Each recipe meets different texture and flavor cravings.
This recipe only took 6 batches to perfect. I wanted to give you the ultimate version of this Fudgy Brownie Recipe, so I tweaked and adjusted until the texture was perfect.
Free Brownie Cheatsheet!
Frustrated with blah brownies? This cheatsheet has everything you need—from essential tools to foolproof tips plus two crave-worthy recipes—to help you master perfect brownies every time!
These Ultimate Brownies are ultra fudgy, packed with rich chocolate flavor, and have the most incredible brownie crust imaginable.
Read through all my tips and tricks below for the perfect Fudgy Brownies everyone will adore!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make the Ultimate FUDGY Brownies
What Kind of Chocolate is Best in Fudgy Brownies?
With making Fudgy Brownies, melted chocolate is key. If we add cocoa powder to this recipe, the texture can become more cakey or chewy instead of fudgy, rich, and dense.
We are using two types of chocolate: semisweet chocolate chips and unsweetened chocolate. They’re melted together with the butter to form the base of this recipe.
I find this gives the perfect balance of chocolate flavor without tasting too bitter or intense. Plus, the chocolate chips play a secret role: they help to form that brownie crust on top!
Be sure to let the melted chocolate cool slightly before adding it to the batter, you don’t want to scramble your eggs with molten hot chocolate.
Learn more about Chocolate in Baking here.
The Butter in Ultimate Brownies
The recipe takes 1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (6 ounces, 170 grams, or 12 tablespoons) and melts it down with the chocolate. This helps prevent the chocolate from seizing if melted by itself, and allows the ingredients to become homogenized.
To make these Ultimate Brownies ultra thick and tall, we’re basically baking a 9×13-inch pan worth of batter in an 8×8-inch pan. That’s why there seems to be so much butter!
Why do we melt butter in brownie recipes instead of beating room temperature butter with sugar? Because that helps give a rich, chewy, fudgy texture. Beating butter incorporates air and gives a more light, airy, cakey texture, which we don’t want in a brownie. (Well, you might want that, but I don’t!)
I actually recently experimented with Butter vs. Oil in Brownies to see how the type of fat used affects the final result. Check out my Butter vs. Oil in Baking article for a full breakdown on each of these fats and how they affect tenderness, flavor, and texture in baked goods (and not just brownies). You might just understand why I opted to only use butter in these Fudgy Brownies!
Can I Use Salted Butter Instead?
Yes, just omit the salt called for in the recipe.
How Much Sugar in Brownies?
We’re using 1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar. Again, if this seems like a lot, that’s because these are very tall brownies, so there is a lot of brownie batter.
Also, we’re using a large amount of unsweetened chocolate, so we need to sweeten the brownies up a little. I promise it won’t make them too sweet!
Note: the sugar doesn’t just provide sweetness, it also affects the texture. Sugar is essential to creating ultra moist and rich brownies. If you reduce the sugar, the brownies become dry and cakey. Learn more about sugar’s many roles in baking brownies here.
How to Get Brownies With a Shiny, Crinkly Crust on Top
In these Ultimate Brownies, we use an electric mixer to beat the sugar with the eggs until the mixture is light and ribbon-thick.
Why? This ensures the sugar is dissolved into the batter, enabling a soft yet fudgy texture and stunning shiny, crackly crust. I learned this technique from this brownie recipe!
Note: The amount of time it takes for your mixer to beat the eggs and sugar will vary. The mixture should lighten in color and become really thick. This can take anywhere from 3 to 8 minutes, depending on your machine and kitchen environment.
More tips for achieving those perfectly crinkly crusts in my How to Make Brownies with Shiny, Thin Crust article. Lots of shocking side-by-side comparisons included, like this one below:
Want Fudgy, Chewy Brownies? Add an Extra Egg Yolk!
Eggs not only act as a binding agent in baked goods, but they also add structure, richness, and enhance texture – but too many eggs (and especially the egg whites!) can cause a cakey texture.
This recipe calls for three whole eggs plus one egg yolk. Be sure to use large eggs (about 56 grams in shell).
Why the extra yolk? The fat in the yolk creates a rich, moist, fudgy, chewy texture, without causing cakiness!
I was so pleased when I discovered I was able to add an egg yolk and STILL get that tissue-thin crust on top. Beating the eggs and sugar is pretty magical.
The Flour
All-purpose flour is the way to go here. Cake flour makes these brownies way too tender and light.
To make perfectly Fudgy Brownies, we only need to use a little bit of flour. Any more flour will create tough, dry, or cakey brownies.
I highly recommend weighing your flour with a digital kitchen scale, but if you don’t have one, be sure to use the spoon and level method to measure your flour to avoid dry brownies.
Important: How to Tell When Brownies are Done Baking?
Bake these Ultimate Brownies in a 350°F oven for 35 to 40 minutes. There should be moist crumbs attached to a tester by the end of the baking time.
The brownies will continue to set as they cool. This recipe must be served after the brownies have cooled to room temperature completely.
In fact, they’re even more fudgy and delicious when served chilled!
If you prefer less rich and gooey brownies, add 5 to 10 minutes to the baking time.
Use a Metal Pan for Baking Brownies!
Glass and ceramic pans will not work for this recipe. They take longer to heat up and will prevent the center of the brownies from cooking before the outside edges are too hard. You’ll be left with gummy brownies instead of perfectly fudgy brownies. This is my favorite pan to use for brownies. Learn more in my Glass vs. Metal Baking Pans article.
How to Cut Brownies Perfectly
For perfectly clean, neat brownie slices, check out my How to Cut Brownies Cleanly in 5 Steps article.
How to Store Ultimate Fudgy Brownies
The Ultimate Fudgy Brownies can be stored inside an airtight container for up to 2 days at room temperature or up to 4 days in the fridge. I actually prefer to serve them chilled – they’re even fudgier when cold!
Recipe Substitutions
This Fudgy Brownie Recipe is written to yield specific textures, as noted in the explanations above. If you try to reduce the sugar, use a sugar substitute, or alter ingredients, the results will NOT be the same. Feel free to add nuts, chocolate chips, toffee bits, or anything else to the batter.
More Brownie Recipes:
- Best Chewy Brownies – my most popular recipe!
- Best Easy Brownies
- Coconut Oil Brownies
- Copycat Cosmic Brownies
- Malted Brown Butter Brownies
Ultimate Fudgy Brownies
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Ingredients
- 1 cup (170 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
- 4 ounces (113 grams) high quality unsweetened chocolate, chopped
- 1 1/2 sticks (170 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 3 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
- 1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup (94 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8×8-inch metal baking pan with foil or parchment and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Do NOT use glass or ceramic baking pans for this recipe, they will not allow the brownies to cook through the center.
- In a large microwave-safe bowl, combine the chocolate chips, unsweetened chocolate, and butter. Microwave for 1 minute, then stir. Continue heating in 30-second bursts, stirring between each burst, until the mixture is melted and smooth but not scorched. Remove from the microwave and let cool slightly.
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the eggs, egg yolk, and sugar on medium-high speed until light and thick and ribbony, about 3 to 5 minutes or more depending on your mixer. Beat in the vanilla extract.
- Using a rubber spatula, gently stir in the cooled chocolate-butter mixture. Gently fold in the flour and salt until combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake until a tester comes out with moist crumbs still attached, about 35 to 40 minutes. Do not overbake the brownies as they will continue to bake once they’re out of the oven.
- Let cool completely to room temperature before slicing. Serve at room temperature or chilled for an even fudgier texture.
Recipe Notes
This recipe was originally published in 2014 and updated with additional recipe tips and baking science info. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
These are delicious!! So Fudgy!!
The brownies tasted amazing and were perfectly fudgy and moist. The beautiful shiny crust totally cracked. Half of the pan cracked while cooking and the remainder cracked when I cut them up. Of course that does not change the taste but they did not look so good. I would love to know why this occurred so that I do not make the mistake again.
These are my most requested dessert and by far the best brownies I have ever had! I’ve been making them for years, always in the same pan but the last 2 times I made them, they cracked about an inch in from 3 of the 4 edges. I haven’t done anything different. Any idea why this might be happening and how to fix it?
Question: Should the oven be conventional or convector? (with a fan?)