French Chocolate Brownies
*Note to self: Let brownies cool before taking pictures, they would look less messy!
Wow. Just wow. With all due respect to Ina’s Outrageous Brownies, these French Chocolate Brownies have trumped and become my all-time favorite brownie recipe. Many thanks to Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook for choosing this week’s recipe – what a fantastic job you did!!
These brownies were created in a pretty non-traditional way in terms of brownies. The eggs and sugar were whisked together in the stand mixer, and then the dry ingredients were added, followed by the melted chocolate/butter combination. In truth, Dorie states that when she created these she was aiming for a chocolate cake, not brownies. But wow, did she nail the brownies! These are dense, moist, insanely chocolatey, and just about everything you could want from a brownie. I couldn’t stop eating pieces off of them each time I walked into the kitchen!
This recipe says it yields 16 brownies, and after cutting these into 16 pieces I’m convinced that Laurie was right – these are French-size brownies, not America’s super-sized variety that we’re used to ;-)
Recipe and some process photos after the break…
French Chocolate Brownies
Ingredients
- ½ cup (62.5 g) all-purpose flour
- ⅛ teaspoon (0.13 teaspoon) salt
- 6 ounces (170.1 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 1 ½ sticks (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into 12 pieces, (12 tablespoons; 6 ounces)
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 cup (200 g) sugar
Instructions
- Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300°F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil, butter the foil, place the pan on a baking sheet, and set aside.
- Whisk together the flour and salt.
- Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Slowly and gently melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and add the butter, stirring so that it melts. It's important that the chocolate and butter not get very hot. However, if the butter is not melting, you can put the bowl back over the still-hot water for a minute. If you've got a couple of little bits of unmelted butter, leave them-it's better to have a few bits than to overheat the whole. Set the chocolate aside for the moment.
- Working with a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until they are thick and pale, about 2 minutes. Lower the mixer speed and pour in the chocolate-butter, mixing only until it is incorporated-you'll have a thick, creamy batter. Add the dry ingredients and mix at low speed for about 30 seconds-the dry ingredients won't be completely incorporated and that's fine. Finish folding in the dry ingredients by hand with a rubber spatula. (This batter was almost like a mousse when it was done being mixed, and very light in color)
- Scrape the batter into the pan and bake 50 to 60 minutes, or until the top is dry and crackled and a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and allow the brownies to cool to warm or room temperature.
- (These brownies ended up with a thin crispy layer on top and rose significantly during baking and then subsequently caved in after cooling slightly!)
- Carefully lift the brownies out of the pan, using the foil edges as handles, and transfer to a cutting board. With a long-bladed knife, cut the brownies into 16 squares, each roughly 2 inches on a side, taking care not to cut through the foil.
- Serving: The brownies are good just warm or at room temperature; they're even fine cold. I like these with a little something on top or alongside-good go-alongs are whipped crème fraiche or whipped cream, ice cream or chocolate sauce or even all three!
- Storing: Wrapped well, these can be kept at room temperature for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @thebrowneyedbaker on Instagram so I can see it!
Hi Michelle,
Thank you for sharing this deliciously rich brownie recipe. I’ve tried many others but this is my favorite. And so easy to prepare. The only thing I recommend changing is the bake time. I bake it for 25 minutes in a convection oven. I also added 1/2 cup chopped walnuts . …. perfection.
Happy baking.
Why are they French brownies? What sets them apart from regular brownies?
Hi Emma, This recipe is from Dorie Greenspan, and she talks about the background of the recipe here: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/08/baking-with-dorie-les-brownies-from-america-t.html.
can i use these in a french cooking comp like are they even french bruh???
Hi Michelle,
I’m interested in making this recipe in 1/2 sheet cake pan for a holiday party. How many batches do I need to make of this recipe to accomplish this? Thanks! Love your site!!! -Valerie
Hi Valerie, I would do 1.5 – an 8-inch square pan holds 8 cups, while a 12.5×17.5-inch pan (just slightly smaller than a 13×18 half sheet pan) holds 12 cups.
I’ve actually made these before and loved them but wanted a little reassurance before I tried this. Could this recipe be used for caramel brownies? I have a good caramel sauce recipe and wanted to know if I would have any baking issues if I just put half the batter in, then the sauce, rest of the batter and baked as usual. Should I swirl the sauce in in or just keep the layers of brownie and sauce separate?
Hi Jasmine, I’ve never used this recipe to make caramel brownies, so I couldn’t say for sure how they would turn out. I do have a favorite recipe that layers brownie batter and caramel sauce, though! https://www.browneyedbaker.com/sweet-and-salty-brownies/
Thank you for you so much for you response I think Ill give those a try since it’s obvious they already work.
Made these last week and followed your recipe exactly (although with ounces instead of cups as I am English!) and my mix was much darker than yours and not as stiff? Still amazingly delicious though and lovely warm with cream as a dessert.
This is very confusing!
if you don’t use the raisins, what do you do with the water and rum??
In the middle of making these, very frustrating.
Julie
Hi Julie, My apologies, those should be omitted. I’ve edited the recipe to reflect that.
You mentioned raisins in the directions but I didn’t see it listed in the ingredients list. How much raisins do you use?
⅓ of a cup.
You say to heat raisins but don’t even tell how much…I READ recipes.Can you email the amount please? Thank you.
Michelle, It’s ⅓ of a cup, which I have corrected above. An honest mistake, which everyone makes.
I would love to make these brownies, but I’ve read this recipe several times–it mentions raisins and cinnamon, but there’s no amount given for how much of either. Am I going blind?
Hi PJ, I noted in the post that I omitted them from the recipe.
I made these and followed the recipe, but the colour of the batter was much darker, and not like the texture of mousse at all. It did not rise and then cave like shown here, and the top cracked just a little bit. I don’t have a mixer, I used a hand blender, is that maybe why? They turned out ok, but too cakey for me.
Hi! I only have chocolate compound dark droplets.Can i use this to substitutes the 6oz bittersweet chocolate ? Thanks!
Hi Tracey, I assume what you are talking about is something like chocolate chips or disks? If so, that’s perfectly fine.