Brownie Ingredients
I bet you have most of what you need to make these brownies already sitting in your kitchen. Here’s what you’ll need:

Butter

Sugar

Cocoa powder

Eggs

Salt

Vanilla essence

All purpose flour

If you want to add chopped chocolate or chocolate chips, you can. These are your brownies, after all! I recommend stirring a handful of chocolate into the batter before pouring into the baking pan or scattering chocolate on top of the batter in the pan.

How to Make The Best Brownies
These are simple to make. You only need one mixing bowl, a small saucepan, and a spoon. There’s no mixer or fancy equipment required! To make them, I follow these steps:

Step 1, Melt the butter with sugar, salt, and cocoa powder. Here’s where the saucepan comes into play. I make something called a double boiler, which is a fancy term for a small saucepan filled with an inch or two of water set over low heat. I place a bowl with the butter, sugar, and cocoa powder over the saucepan and watch as the they melt into a gritty looking mixture. This process helps to create that crinkly top we all love. It’s the sugar being heated that helps the sugar migrate to the top of the brownies when they are baking in the oven. You can complete this process in the microwave (many of our readers have). I do prefer the stovetop method since I know it helps to achieve that beautiful crackly top.

How to Make Brownies // Melting the butter with sugar, cocoa powder, and salt.
Melting the butter with sugar, cocoa powder, and salt.
Step 2, Add the vanilla and eggs. We use two eggs to make the brownies, but I add them one at a time. I add the first egg and mix it into the butter, sugar, and cocoa powder. When it’s mixed in, I repeat with the second egg.

How to Make Brownies // We add two eggs to the batter, but mix them into the batter one at a time. After adding the eggs, the batter will transform from a gritty batter to one that looks like shiny pudding.
After adding the eggs, the batter will transform from a gritty batter to one that looks like shiny pudding.
Step 3, Add the flour. After mixing the flour into the batter, I beat the batter with a spoon for 40 to 50 strokes. The batter will be thick. This extra beating makes sure that the butter is emulsified into the batter, which makes sure the brownies bake perfectly in the oven. I usually tell you to be careful not to over mix batters on this blog, but that’s not the case with these simple brownies.

You only need 1/2 cup of flour for these extra fudgy brownies.
You only need 1/2 cup of flour for these extra fudgy brownies.
Step 4, Bake them. The brownies bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes. I’ve dedicated a whole section below telling you how I tell when brownies are ready to be pulled out of the oven, because nobody wants an overbaked brownie, right?

We bake the brownies in a 8-inch square pan.