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Dessert

Chocolate Brownies

A chocolate brownie made with sugar, butter, chocolate, walnuts, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,548 recipes. Both carry 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine, which smells roasted, nutty. The science ↓

Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix together the sugar and melted butter.

  2. Add the grated chocolate, chopped walnuts, flour, and beaten eggs to the mixture. Stir until well combined.

  3. Spread the batter in a greased baking tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until set.

  2. Cut into squares while hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the brownies as they bake.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter sets into a cut-able square.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture for a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps give the crust its browning.
Chocolate
Supplies the main chocolate flavour and richness.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Brownies keep softening as they cool, so pulling them out too late dries them out, while too early leaves a wet, unset centre. Watch for the surface to look set rather than relying only on the clock.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, chocolate, flour, egg):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Macadamia nutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, chocolate, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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