There has been much ado surrounding Ina Garten’s Outrageous Brownies recipe on a number of cooking and baking forums that I frequent. Given my quest to master many different homemade brownie recipes I thought that this one warranted my undertaking. I should have known what I was getting myself into when I was mixing the batter and thought, “Wow, that looks REALLY rich!” Indeed, these brownies are definitely the richest I have ever tasted. Which is not a bad thing 
This recipe was super easy to put together and didn’t take much time at all. I must forewarn you – listen to the directions when they say to cool the brownies completely before cutting!
The original recipe makes an enormous amount of brownies, so I chose to make only a half recipe. Lucky for me, Julia from Two Novice Chefs, One Tiny Kitchen had already made my job much easier! The recipe below is the one I used, however I have provided a link to the original should the rest of you chocoholics decide to fully indulge 
Outrageous Brownies
(Source: Ina Garten)
Ingredients:
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 pound (1 1/3 cups) plus 6 ounces (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips, divided
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
3 extra-large eggs
1.5 tablespoons instant coffee powder (I omitted this ingredient)
1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
1 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1.5 cups diced walnut pieces (also optional, I left them out)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9×13 baking pan. (325 degrees if using a dark non-stick pan)
Melt together the butter, chocolate chips, and unsweetened chocolate on top of a double boiler (I did this step in a glass dish in the microwave at 30 second intervals). Cool slightly. Stir together the eggs, instant coffee, vanilla and sugar. Stir in the warm chocolate mixture and cool to room temperature.
Stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to cooled chocolate mixture. Toss the walnuts and chocolate chips with flour to coat. (Since I did not use walnuts, I only used 1 tablespoon of flour to toss the chocolate chips.) Then add to the chocolate batter. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake for about 30 minutes, or until tester just comes out clean. Halfway through the baking, rap the pan against the oven shelf to allow air to escape from between the pan and the brownie dough. Do not overbake! Cool thoroughly, refrigerate well and cut into squares.
Tags: Brownies, Ina Garten, Walnuts
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I haven’t tried this recipe, but it sounds amazing!! I would have a hard time waiting until they cooled as well!
These look and sound heavenly! I love the deep dish recipe but just looking at these is making me question that love! Yum!
Oh my, these look and sound amazing!!! I would gladly sample one if you have some left.
wow, they look amazing!!! oooooh I just love chocolate! x
I’ve been looking for a good chewy brownie recipe and everywhere i look i see this recipe. I love your site so I shall follow in your footsteps and try this yummy recipe! thanks for the post!
Jenn Chambers (www.bakingchamber.blogspot.com)
These look wonderful!! I was wondering..is it really 4 teaspoons of baking powder? It sounded like alot…so I wanted to make sure. Thanks so much!
Hi Gessica – Wow, thank you so much for catching that!! It should be 1.5 teaspoons of baking powder. No idea where 4 came from! I have edited the recipe so it’s now correct.
Substituted the semi-sweet and unsweet chocolate with some Hershey’s Mint Chips. SMELL HEAVENLY!
I made these! and OH MY GOODNESS they were good. I kept them in a fridge and nibbled on them all week. Everyone loved them.
One thing: It was really really chocolately – I was just wondering if the amount of chocolate could be reduced without compromising on taste..
Hi chiew, I’m so glad you enjoyed these brownies! As far as reducing the amount of chocolate… you likely couldn’t reduce the amount of melted chocolate without then altering the amount of sugar and potentially butter as well. I would probably recommend cutting the squares into smaller pieces or omit the chocolate chips that are mixed into the batter. That may help a bit.
I have Ina’s “Barefoot Contessa” cookbook with this recipe and have tried it several times. This is one of the most decadent brownies I have ever tasted! One word of caution (if you are using the original recipe)… It suggests baking them in a 12x18x1 pan. I found that the amount of batter in the recipe is too much for this size pan — unfortunately I didn’t figure this out until it bubbled over the sides of the pan and burned to the bottom of my oven. It ruined that batch as the smoke in the oven spoiled the flavor of the brownies (and wasted a lot of expensive ingredients to boot). Now I just reserve a bit of the batter and bake it in a separate pan — they will rise quite a bit even with rapping the pan on rack halfway through baking (as the recipe suggests). Super delish!
Hi Liza, Thanks so much for the baking tips! I have only ever made a half batch, so great to know about the size issue for the whole recipe!
I agree that it is not an inexpensive brownie to make – but sooooo worth making. My version of the original Ina recipe calls for a 13 x 18 inch pan (a half sheet pan). That might work best to avoid your spillage issue. I have made them several times in a half sheet pan and never had a problem with it. Good luck!
I tried the original recipe of Ina’s a few years ago and they are outrageous and decadent!! Bu far my favorite brownie ever!
I have these baking right now and my house smell heavenly!
I can almost smell them! Enjoy your brownies!
Do you think it’d be ok to use all semisweet chocolate (no unsweetened) and reduce the sugar by 2 tablespoons? Or should I just keep the sugar?
Hi Sarah, I think that’s too much unsweetened to compensate by only removing 2 tablespoons of sugar. Is there a reason you don’t want to use unsweetened? It really helps to balance the flavors and make sure the brownies aren’t too overwhelmingly sweet.
Great looking brownies… Thank you all for the baking tips. I’m gonna make this for my friend’s birthday next week.
Michelle, I have made these brownies for events and many people ask me to bake them. I am not a big walnut fan but really like them in these brownies! I think one of the things that makes these brownies “outrageous” is the addition of the coffee granules. It intensifies the chocolate flavor for me. They freeze great as well. Fantastic flavor!!!!
Did you bake these brownies in covection, convection bake or regular bake and if not in regular bake how did you adjust your time and temperature? Ina says her half sheet pans are 2″ high but all of mine are only around 1 and 1/4″ high. Think i will definitely use a metal pan and make 1/2 batch. Can’t wait.
Thanks,
A true chocoholic
Hi Carole, I used a regular oven so I’m sorry I’m not much help on the conversions. Enjoy the brownies!
Great website! Question: Could you tell me what this means in the recipe” Halfway through the baking, rap the pan against the oven shelf to allow air to escape from between the pan and the brownie dough”
Hi Shannon, Thank you! Basically just pick the pan up a tiny bit and then let it fall back on the oven rack. This will pop any air bubbles.