Easy brownies - mix in tin

I am sharing this recipe for easy brownies for anyone who craves chocolate baking but has no energy for it.  It is a recipe I found on The Kitchn but has since disappeared.  These brownies are so effortlessly amazing that I could not let the recipe linger in my draft folders any longer.  It is made with no mixing bowl, no chocolate and no lining of the tin.  When you next want the easiest way to bake brownies, I am here for you!

The miracle of this recipe is that you swish some oil around in a square cake tin, mix all the ingredients in the tin, bake and the brownie comes out like a dream.  I don't understand how the magic happens.  It sounds impossible.  Sure there needed to be a little care in cooling them slightly and using a gentle knife to coax them out.  Yet it works!  

The first time I made it I couldn't believe my eyes.  I was raised to always line and/or grease a cake tin.  When I was a child, my mum usually lined cake tins with butter wrappers - the residual butter was easier than having to rub butter over the tin.  Then I discovered a canister of oil spray (once the threat of CFCs in aerosols had passed) and then I moved onto baking paper.  We went through a phase where both Sylvia and I made these brownies.  

The batter has the glossiness of a good brownie batter.  I find that a firm square edged silicone spatula is great for getting to the corners of the tin to make the ingredients are all mixed in. It is beautiful to see just how clean the bottom of the tin is as the spatula pulls the batter away.

The fact that the recipe I had found on The Kitchn just disappeared makes the recipe all the more mysterious.  I went to the link in the draft and the recipe it went to was not the one I had discovered last year.  I have searched The Kitchn.  I have searched all of the World Wide Web. Either it is no longer online or it is lost in all the brownie recipes online!  Thank goodness I wrote recipe notes. 

I made the recipe again this week to check I wasn't dreaming.  It still worked.  Nothing I could do could destroy the magic.  I used half a cup of wholemeal flour and 1/4 cup of white flour.  No problem.  I forgot to mix the dry ingredients before adding the egg and water.  All good.  I tipped all the choc chips into the batter but remembered in time to grab some back to dot the top.  These brownies are so good they do not need choc chips.  And they are so easy that the only equipment needed a cake tin, a tablespoon, a teaspoon, a spatula and a couple of cup measures.  

While the brownies bake, they smell amazing.  It has made me so happy to come home from work to the warm embrace of Sylvia baking these.  They have such an alluring aroma that that is so good it would make you want to buy a house.  When the brownies are warm out of the oven, they are quite squidgy but wonderfully intense.  As they cool, they get more dense and slightly chewy, especially around the edges.  They are so difficult to share but I am sure they would be welcome at any gathering.

More brownie recipes on Green Gourmet Giraffe blog:
Brownie in a mug (v) 
Chocolate brownies with chickpea flour (gf)
Donna Hay Brownies (gf)
Nigel's Brownies
Nutella brownies
Vegan brownies with optional dulce de leche swirl (v) 
Walnut brownies

Easy Brownies - mix in tin
Slightly adapted from The Kitchn
Makes 16 squares

1/2 cup neutral oil, such as canola or rice bran
1 1/4 cups castor sugar
3/4 cup plain flour

1/2 cup natural cocoa powder - try an extra 2 tbsp cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped chocolate (optional)

 

Preheat oven to 180 C.  Pour oil into a 20 square cake tin and swirl to cover base and halfway up the sides.  

 

Place sugar, flour, coco and salt in the tin.  Use a firm spatula or wooden spoon to roughly mix and make a well for the eggs.  Add eggs and water. Stir until well combined - use the spatula to push mixture clean off the base so it does not stick.  Mix in most of choc chips, leaving a few to dot over the top.  Smooth down mixture and top with remaining choc chips.  

 

Bake for about 25-28 minutes or until mixture pulls away from the side and top is slightly dry.  Remove from oven and wait 15 minutes.  Slice into 16 pieces in the tin.  Best to wait until cooled before removing from the tin but if you are careful you can have warm brownies from the tin.  They are great warm, at room temperature or over the next few days.

 

Notes:

• Works with 1/2 wholemeal flour and 1/4 cup white flour
• You can use dark or milk choc chips
• A firm silicone spatula is good for mixing the mixture and making sure it comes clean off the bottom of the tin.
• Love and Lemons has a similar brownie ingredients that she finds similar to boxed brownie mixture she had as a child.
• They are best warm or room temperature but I don't recommendation when really hot out of the oven. 

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