Matthew Woolen Michelle Lopez.Weeknight Baking

Johnny Iuzzini,Sugar Rush

Stella Parks,BraveTart

Hershey’s Wayne Gisslen, Professional

Baking

Martha Stewart Bo Friberg Betty Crocker

Alton Brown Average

Bake temp and time 350 °F / 25 MIN 325 °F / 40-45 MIN 350 °F / 50 MIN 350 °F / 30 MIN 350 °F / 40-45 MIN 325 °F / 40-45 MIN 350 °F / 40-45 MIN 400 °F / 30 MIN 350 °F / 40-45 MIN 350 °F / 36 min TK 350°F / 50 MIN

Portion 1/2 sheet pan 9” X 9” 8” X 11” 9” X 13” 8” x 8” 9” X 13” 9” X 9” 1/2 sheet pan 9” X 9” 8” X 8” TK 9” X 13”

TricksPastry flour,

ganache icingBox-style, powdered

sugar. Water, canola oilWater bath 180 °F.

Baking powder, spices

Brown butter, espresso, Dutch and

chocolate

Natural cocoa, baking powder

Nuts, no whippingButter and oil, touch of

brown sugarBread flour,

baking powderChocolate liquor, nuts

Twice baked, melted butter

Whole egg foam, miso, dulce de leche chocolate chips

Ingredients grams Bakers %: Weight of the flour in each recipe is 100%, and each other ingredient is measured as a percentage of the weight of the flour

Flour 283 100% 95 100% 190 100% 125 100% 100 100% 115 100% 125 100% 455 100% 140 100% 70 100% 170 100% 170 100%

Sugar 736 260% 351 370% 525 276% 505 404% 300 300% 260 226% 365 292% 795 175% 380 271% 365 522% 458 310% 671 395%

Chocolate 283 100% 85 90% 341 179% 170 136% 0 0% 230 200% 200 160% 680 149% 142 101% 0 0% 213 111% 205 120%

Cocoa 0 0% 56 59% 0 0% 115 92% 55 55% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 140 200% 37 41% 68 40%

Butter and oil 455 161% 147 147% 226 119% 340 272% 255 255% 290 252% 140 112% 455 100% 150 107% 228 326% 267 185% 261 153%

Egg 300 106% 100 105% 200 105% 295 236% 150 150% 175 152% 150 120% 400 88% 150 107% 200 286% 212 135% 212 125%

This is Matthew’s tried-and-true recipe from his days as a restaurant pastry chef. Fudgy yet light with a balanced chocolate flavor and a pleasant ganache frosting. This brownie gets flipped out of the pan, so the crunchy top becomes the bottom.

These box-style brownies are on point with a crunchy exterior and gooey interior that’s studded with chocolate chunks. The mix is a simple combo of wet and dry, but an extra touch of water helps to bloom the cocoa powder, adding chew and fudginess.

From the Sugar Rush cookbook, these brownies are thick, soft, chewy, and a little smoky with chipotle powder and smoked paprika. The eggs and liquid sugar (malt syrup) are cooked and then whipped to a full ribbon, yielding a nougat-like texture.

With browned butter, espresso, and dark chocolate, this brown-ie is chock full of rich, chocolatey flavors. Dutch-processed co-coa contributes to the darker color. The top is shiny, slightly crackly, and crunchy, and the interior is dense and gooey.

From the classic American chocolate manufacturer, this brownie is made with natural cocoa powder. It’s nice and thick with a delicate flavor, crunchy top, and a soft interior that sits somewhere in between fluffy and cake-like and gooey and dense.

From a textbook that both Grant and Matthew used in culinary school, this recipe includes nuts and uses a modified sponge technique with no air whipped in. The texture was tender but dense, and a bit dry and crumbly. Noticeable nut (pecan) flavors.

This is a recipe that never disappoints. With a touch of coco-nut oil, a bit of brown sugar, and unsweet-ened chocolate liquor, these fudgy brownies are like Baby Bear’s bed in Goldilocks: they’re not too sweet nor too dense. They’re just right.

From his book on the fundamentals of pas-try, this recipe is like a brownie-cookie bar hybrid. Full of nuts and raisins, it has great crunch factors, but these inclusions also reduce the chocolate flavor. Bread flour gives a nice, chewy texture.

From the iconic home baking cookbook, this is an old school brown-ie that inspires nos-talgic memories. It has a good looking glassy top and nice crunchy textures. The flavor is on the milder side and we found the walnuts to be overpowering.

This brownie has a bittersweet dark chocolate flavor. The recipe uses a unique twice-baked method at low temperatures and has less flour than usual with increased quantities of cocoa, sugar, and egg. (That’s why the bars above look so wild!)

This one was the first step to get to our ultimate, most epic brownie. Loaded with chocolate flavor, the texture was in between chewy and fudgy with a dense, soft, creamy center. But, in the end, it was just average. We knew we could do better.

We poured everything we learned from these recipes into a meta-phorical mixing bowl, added some unorthodox ingredients and cool techniques to achieve a brownie that’s flavorful, gooey, chewy, fudgy, way more adjectives, and rich as f*¢k. It’s THE ultimate

The Ultimate Rich as F*¢k Brownie

Browniesa parametric recipe

Dense, fudgy, fluffy, cake-like.Stuffed with nuts, raisins (?!), chopped chocolate, or chips. From beloved boxed mixes and trusted sources to technical manuals and our own tried-and-true recipes, our brownie research was nearly boundless. Below, behold the brownies that made our ultimate recipe possible, charted for easy comparison.

For more ultimate recipes, visit chefsteps.com

Bar chart indicates percentage variation

from the average baker’s percentage.

No bars: Average doesn’t varyfrom the average