I love brownies! My mum, my sister & I would always order this for a dessert in a restaurant – a warm brownie on a sizzler plate, with hot chocolate sauce and cold vanilla ice cream… yum! A great childhood food memory right there!

My favourite version of a brownie – chewy, moist, gooey, extra chocolaty, with the lovely crinkle top. Hence I’ve named the recipe as chewy brownies; fudgy brownies are a recipe for another day.

Update – I made another batch of these brownies today (26 July 2017) and added chunks of chocolate on the top instead of mixing it in the batter. Just as yum!

Brownies are versatile – they can be cakey, or chewy, or fudgy; they can have choco chips or nuts. What makes for the perfect brownie is a matter of personal preference. If you look at the basic ingredients, it’s usually chocolate (either cocoa powder or melted chocolate), butter/oil, sugar, eggs, flour, salt & vanilla. In what proportion they are mixed, and if any substitutes are used can define what outcome you would get. (Great idea for a “science behind’ series 🙂 )

To achieve the end result of a chewy brownie, I am using cocoa powder with extra chocolate chips folded in, a mix of butter & oil, an extra egg yolk for added chewiness, cornflour for texture, and just a little amount of leavening agent. You can easily add nuts to the recipe for a crunch.

And did I mention the heavenly smell in the kitchen? 

Ingredients –

70 g of unsalted butter
250 g of granulated white sugar
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
75 g (3/4 cup) of unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
63 g of all-purpose flour (1/2 cup)
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 tablespoon cornflour
1/4 tsp salt
100-125 g of semisweet chocolate chips (or dark if you like to make it more intense) – OR chunks of chopped chocolate instead of chips

Procedure – 

1. Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Prepare an 8″x8″ square pan with parchment paper with little hanging. Grease it with butter.
2. In a microwave-safe bowl, add the butter and sugar and microwave for 1 minute. The butter should be melted.
3. Add the oil & cocoa powder and mix. Let it cool down to room temperature.
4. In a bowl, whisk the 2 eggs & yolk with the vanilla. Add it to the mixture and whisk until well combined.
5. Sift the flour, baking soda, cornflour & salt into the mixture and mix gently until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. (If you are adding chopped nuts, add them at this stage and fold till evenly combined)
6. Pour the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Bake it at 160ºC for 40-45 min, or until the brownies are set and a cake tester or toothpick inserted comes out with moist crumbs and not wet dough. Make sure you don’t overcook.
7. Let it cool for 5 min in the pan and then take out to cool on a wire rack completely.
8. Cut into squares (9 or 16 depending on the size you want). Clean the knife between each cut. If you feel the brownies are crumbling while cutting, put it in the refrigerator for 30 min before cutting.