This delicious recipe for fudge brownies is rich and chocolatey. Chilled chocolate chips added to the batter mean you have melty chocolate chips in each bite.
Melt butter with sugar in the microwave or on the stove: In the microwave, heat butter on high for 1 minute or until the butter melts. Add sugar and stir to combine, then microwave for another 1-2 minutes, stopping it if it starts to bubble. Stir to help dissolve the sugar. (On the stove, heat and stir until the sugar dissolves.)
Scrape batter into a greased 9x13 inch pan. Bake for about 30-35 minutes at 350F. (Start checking at 25 minutes if the butter and sugar bubbled or if you're concerned that you overmixed.) A toothpick inserted into the brownies will come out with moist crumbs, but not batter. (If you hit a chocolate chip, test a different area.) I baked a metal pan for 32 minutes, and a glass pan for 36 minutes. Wait as long as you can before cutting and eating warm brownies. An hour is usually all I last.
Using chilled chocolate chips means that the chocolate only partially melts into the brownies, providing fudginess in the brownies while also giving delicious bites of chocolate chips.
Heating butter to melt sugar into it, and stirring the sugar to help it dissolve, helps create a shiny, crackly crust for the brownies. If your sugar bubbles, however, you will lose moisture and your brownies may be a little drier and cakier; begin checking your brownies for doneness sooner.
Adding cocoa powder to the warm butter/sugar helps cool it, but still, be careful when adding eggs. If your mixture is too warm, your eggs may cook as you whisk them in.
After adding flour, fold the batter gently and do not overmix. You don't want to work much more air into the batter, and you don't want to develop gluten.
Brownies are done when a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with crumbs on it. It shouldn't be covered with batter, and it shouldn't be clean. You want lots of moist, sticky crumbs on the toothpick. If your oven runs hot, or if your butter/sugar bubbled, or if you're worried you overmixed the batter, start checking your brownies at 25 minutes of baking time.
Adapted from King Arthur Flour