I like all brownies, but fudgy brownies are my favorite. I love it when I take a bite and the texture is almost like a truffle, smooth and rich and creamy.
Of course, we all know it’s all too easy to overbake a pan of brownies. Every minute matters! Even after decades of baking brownies, sometimes I space out and bake them for too long.
For you fellow fudgy brownie fans, a daring method I learned creates some insurance. I’ve been doing it for years and never skip it. And it’s really no extra work at all.
How I Keep My Brownies Rich and Fudgy
In the 2000s, I worked at a chocolate factory. I had pounds and pounds of artisan chocolate in my kitchen—quite the perk—and was always experimenting with brownie recipes. One author I learned tons from was Alice Medrich. In her 1999 cookbook Alice Medrich’s Cookies and Brownies, she detailed what she calls the Steve Ritual. It traces back to her assistant’s husband, Steve, and the manner in which he and his college roommates rescued a pan of just-baked brownies from a too-hot oven: they shoved it straight into the freezer. The maneuver “arrested the cooking instantly and produced, by accident, brownies divinely moist and creamy inside yet crusty and satisfying on the outside,” Medrich wrote.
The second I read this, I knew I’d have to try it out. Medrich’s adaptation is an ice bath rigged up in a roasting pan, but I prefer to forgo that and stick to the freezer method. In essence, the freezer shocks your brownies. The Steve Ritual totally works, delivering brownies with a beguiling textural contrast and deeper chocolate flavor.
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How To Shock Your Brownies in the Freezer
Medrich notes that the Steve Ritual most benefits recipes with at least 1/2 cup of flour for an 8×8-inch pan. Most brownie recipes have at least 1/2 cup of flour, so it’s applicable to many brownie scenarios.
I use the Steve Ritual on blondies, too. It came in handy when I taught cooking classes and we made brownies or blondies, because we could shock them in the freezer and they’d be set up enough to cut and serve neatly before the end of the class.
How To Get This Trick Right
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Clear out a spot in the freezer before you start. Move plastic bags that could melt and lay down a few potholders to protect freezer surfaces.
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Don’t do this with a Pyrex dish. The thermal shock of the hot dish in the freezer could cause it to crack. Stick with metal pans.
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Set a timer for about 30 minutes so the brownies don’t freeze all the way. You’re just chilling them, not freezing them solid.
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As a bonus, cold brownies are much easier to cut cleanly.
If you like lighter, cakey brownies or “well-done” brownies, this is not the trick for you! But for us fans of seriously chocolatey brownies, it’s the best.
Read the original article on Simply Recipes