Flourless Chocolate Brownies

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This is a flourless chocolate cake masquerading in brownie form.

These brownies get a triple-dose of deep fudge-y flavor from dark chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, and unsweetened cocoa powder mixed with a hearty amount of butter.

The batter is enriched with whipped eggs and sugar until it resembles chocolate mousse in texture.

The whole thing gets baked for a scant 25 minutes, then cooled for 10—if you can stand to wait that long.

They’re moist and dense and should satisfy anybody’s chocolate craving. Serve them with topped with homemade creme chantilly or rich vanilla ice cream and cups of espresso.

Flourless Chocolate Brownies: Make them gluten free!

A few of my close friends have recently discovered that they can’t eat gluten.

Now, I’ve tried a bunch of the pre-made brownie and cake mixes that are out there, but none have been able to produce the dense, rich chocolate flavor and texture that they were missing. And none of them seemed remotely homemade.

These brownies get the job done—and then some. Just make sure that all your ingredients are labeled “Gluten Free.” (Please note that some of the chocolate I used in this recipe, while it doesn’t contain gluten, is manufactured in a facility that uses wheat.)

I’m not remotely an expert on gluten-free cooking. There are a ton of great gluten-free blogs out there. Check out Trav’s Gone Gluten Free, which is one of my favs. (He’s funny, smart, and gives you a ton of great info, recipes, and links.)

Flourless Chocolate Brownies: A note on chocolate

Use any combination of good, dark chocolate that you like. Just make sure that you wind up with 10 oz. total.

I used two 3.5-oz. bars Green & Black’s Organic Dark Chocolate, 70% cocoa content and three 1-oz. blocks of unsweetened Baker’s Chocolate (the kind you can find at most U.S. supermarkets). For the cocoa, I used Ghirardelli Unsweetened Cocoa.

Flourless Chocolate Brownies: Get to the recipe already, Mouse!

Yep, yep! Here you go.

Flourless Chocolate Brownies

7 oz. dark chocolate, about 70% cocoa
3 oz. unsweetened baker’s chocolate
11 Tbls. butter, cut into smallish dice
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 jumbo eggs
1 cup sugar
powdered sugar, for dusting
spray oil

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Fill a pot with a half-an-inch of water and set it on the stove over high heat to boil.

Flourless Chocolate Brownies: Prep your pan

I used a 7 x 11 inch pan, but you can also use an 8 x 10 inch pan. Just keep an eye on your brownies near the end of their cooking time.

Spritz your pan lightly with spray oil. Cut a piece of parchment paper to about the size of your pan. (This is kind of a pain, but definitely don’t skip this step. It make the brownies an absolute breeze to get out.)

Set the paper over your pan, then press it down. The oil will help it stick.

If your paper hangs over a bunch, just give it a little trim with a pair of scissors.

You want your finished pan to look about like this:

Don’t make yourself crazy with this. If the paper is a little uneven and bubbly, that’s just fine.

Flourless Chocolate Brownies: Melt the chocolate and butter

Break up the chocolate into pieces and put it in a large, heatproof bowl. (The bowl should be big enough that it can comfortably sit on top of your pot of boiling water.)

When the water in your pot is boiling, set the bowl on top of the pot, like this:

When you’ve seated the bowl on top of the pot, drop the heat down to medium-low. This will keep the water simmering, without boiling over.

The chocolate should immediately start to melt from the steam in the pot.

Stir the chocolate occasionally until it melts completely. This should happen fairly quickly.

When it’s melted completely, it should look about like this:

Toss in the diced butter.

Stir constantly to combine and melt.

When it’s totally melted, it should look about like this:

Turn the heat off. Take your bowl off the stove (be careful, it’ll be dripping with hot water) and set it on the counter.

Toss in the cocoa powder.

Stir to combine. Break up any lumps of cocoa with a spatula.

Set the bowl aside to cool while you deal with the eggs and sugar.

Flourless Chocolate Brownies: Whip the eggs and sugar together

Put the eggs in the bowl of a mixer. (You can also totally use a hand-held mixer or regular whisk for this.)

Fit your mixer with the whisk attachment and whip the eggs until they’re well scrambled.

Turn off them mixer. Toss in the sugar.

Whip the eggs and sugar together until they about double in volume.

You want them to look about like this:

Your mixture should be light, fluffy, and full of bubbles�but still be pretty thin, like this:

Flourless Chocolate Brownies: Make the brownie batter

By now, your melted chocolate should be warm, not super hot. (If it’s too hot, the eggs could scramble when you add them in.)

Pour the egg/sugar mixture into the melted chocolate.

With a spatula, fold the eggs into the chocolate. Do this gently, so you don’t knock too much air out of the eggs. (The air bubbles help give the brownies their poof.)

If you’re not sure how to fold the eggs and chocolate together, this Epicurious video does a great job of explaining the technique.

When the eggs and chocolate are fully combined, your batter should look about like this, and have the consistency of chocolate mousse:

Flourless Chocolate Brownies: Bake & cool

Pour the batter into your prepared pan.

With a rubber spatula, smooth the surface of the batter a little to even it out.

Pop the pan into your preheated oven. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes.

They’re done when they’re firm on the edges, here:

But still a little soft in the center, here:

Let them rest in the pan for 10 minutes when you take them out of the oven.

After 10 minutes, grab the edges of the parchment paper and lift the brownies out of the baking pan. (Get an even hold on the paper, so the brownies don’t crack.)

Set the brownies, paper and all, on a sheet pan or the counter to finish cooling.

Serve and enjoy!


***
Copyright 2008-2009 The Hungry Mouse�/Jessica B. Konopa. All rights reserved.

Martha Stewart for 1-800-Flowers.com


Stonewall Kitchen, LLC

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Jessie Cross is a cookbook author and creator of The Hungry Mouse, a monster online food blog w/500+ recipes. When she's not shopping for cheese or baking pies, Jessie works as an advertising copywriter in Boston. She lives in Salem, Massachusetts with her husband and two small, fluffy wolves.

24 COMMENTS

  1. This looks divine! I just finished a Daring Bakers Challenge, so cannot think about baking another thing, but absolutely LOVE dark chocolate! And only 7 ingredients? I'm bookmarking this!
  2. Aww, thanks guys! Kerrie--Let me know how they stack up! (If you guys don't know Kerrie's blog, Gluten-Free in the Shaolin, definitely go check it out! Click her name in her comment for a direct link.) +Jessie
  3. Your brownies look sound delicious. Check this out: http://food.blogdig.net/archives/articles/December2008/27/Flourless_Chocolate_Brownies.html Are they copying your content?
  4. Sounds like my flourless chocolate cake. Definitely will give this a try sometime. Also, I've a tip on melting the chocolate for those with microwave. You just pop the chocolate into the microwave and zap it on high for a minute or so and its all melted nicely. Then add the butter and repeat. Easy, fast and no hassle!
  5. Thanks, all! Chou--Thank you, hon! And thanks for stopping by! Ivy--Thanks SO much! I actually gave those guys permission to pull my feed, as long as they link back to me. I appreciate you keeping an eye out for me. Goodness knows there's a fair amount of content scooping that goes on out there. Jude--Hehe, you can TOTALLY call it health food. :D Hooray! Foong--Thanks! And what a great tip! I thought of you the other day...I bought a new microwave! Not as fancy as yours, but it's a little Oster and it does the job. Gabi--You're very silly :D Thanks, honey! +Jessie
  6. this sounds delicious, but I wish someone would explain to me how you Americans measure butter in tablespoons???? It sounds incredibly messy, as well as inaccurate (what sized tablespoon, level or heaped, how heaped is heaped, etc. etc.). why not just weigh it, like everyone else? Or at least give the amount in weights for us Europeans so we can also enjoy your recipes.
    • In America our butter is packaged in sticks which are marked in table spoons. All you need to do is cut the butter at the mark. pretty easy.
  7. Saba! Thanks for stopping by (and for the compliment)! OK, here's the deal with American butter. I can't tell you why we do it this way, but I can explain how it works. Most of the time, one pound of butter comes in a box, divided into 4 individually wrapped sticks. The butter wrapper has marks on it to mark each tablespoon. (Tablespoons are standardized here, so there's only one size.) So...one stick of butter is equal to 4 oz. or 113 grams or 1/2 cup. For this recipe, 11 Tbls. is equal to about 156.6 grams. I'm actually working on a few tools right now that will make it a lot easier to do conversions. Hope this helps. :D Cheers! +Jessie
  8. I love your site! First time poster...I use organic eggs and they are pretty much exclusively large or extra-large where I live, how should I adjust this recipe since it calls for 4 Jumbo eggs? Thanks, Julia
    • Ya know, most baking recipes usually call for unsalted butter, mainly because it allows you to control the amount of salt you're using--both from a taste and a health perspective, if you're concerned with salt intake. Depending on the recipe, if you use salted butter, then add additional salt if it's called for, your finished product could wind up with an undesirable salty taste. Usually, if a recipe calls for one or the other, there's a reason. The recipe writer has already noodled all that out. That said, I think it's really a matter of personal taste. In this recipe, I don't find that it makes a difference what kind of butter you use. I really only go out of the way to use unsalted butter when I'm making something that has a really delicate flavor--and also calls for a lot of butter. Hope that helps! Cheers! +Jessie
  9. Actually, salt can cause butter to vary in moisture content. Baking is chemistry, so most recipes call for unsalted butter because weight and volume won't be impacted by the environment you are baking in. Also, I love the recipe and will make it on payday for certain.
  10. Thanks for this recipe!! Although it is absolutely impossible to whisk the eggs by hand. I tried it for my first batch and it didn't work out so well!!
  11. Hi Jess Just thought I'd say that the way this is set out is very good, being already challenged by being male and in the kitchen, I find the pretty pictures most helpful. wish I'd seen this recipe before I made the one with almond meal! I travel around cafes trying gluten free brownies, all in the name of science of course, and I like them warmed with yoghurt and thick cream on the side............ Hmm need more brownie!
  12. These sound like my kind of brownies, triple chocolate. I would love to see a picture of the inside. Are these gooey, moist or a bit of both? Thanks.
  13. While this recipe tasted wonderful, the middle never got firm. I baked it for 10 minute extra and then let it sit to cool. The edges are firm, but the middle is too soft to even cut into squares. I now have it back in the oven for another 15 minutes.

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