Brownie issues!!!Help

[jennifermarie]

I have been having the hardest time with my brownie recipe lately. I've made brownies before that have turned out great, but as of lately, my brownies have been awful. They won't finish cooking, all of the sugar rises to the top and all of the butter sinks to the bottom. Its an absolute mess and I can't think of why they are doing this. I am making them from scratch and am following the direction to a T (though instead of eggs I use an egg replacer, but I always bake with this). I'm using a glass pan with mint chips and chocolate chips in the mixture. Can anyone help me with this issue.... I hate spending so much time making these things just for them to be grainy/oily and raw after 20 min in the oven.

 

[jessiquina]

can you post the recipe ? we can help you better if we know what you're workin with

 

[siduri]

I never liked glass pans but if you've always used them, then that's not the problem. 

Is there ANYTHING different that you're doing?  Glass pan, mint and chocolate chips, baking at the beginning of the day or at the end (oven temp might be different)? 

Also, is it in the same oven, with the same flour, same butter, etc? 

Coming to italy my brownies, cookies, cakes and piecrusts would all be too greasy, the butter sinking to the bottom of the pan, the cookies greasy messes with little body, the piecrust a greasy mess and impossible to roll out. 

It turns out it was the flour, italian flour being "weaker" (less gluten) than the american. I learned to put more flour and less butter in my recipes here.  I hear flour in the southern US is like that too.  So a change in flour might have done it. 

I don;t think knowing the recipe can help, if the ingredients are the same.  If the recipe were defective, then they would never have come out well.  But if the recipe uses something like crisco then the formula may have changed since you made them last.  That could be the culprit.  And an egg replacer?  You mean they're not eggs?  That could have changed as well. 

 

[jennifermarie]

Recipe is just a basic brownie recipe..

Chocolate chips, butter, flour, sugar, vanilla, baking soda, eggs. I used Semi sweet chococlate chips with mint chocolate chips. Melted them with the butter in the microwave and then added teh otehr ingredients (minus the eggs, used an egg replacer) and cooked them for 20 min on 350 in a glass pan. I don't think the pan should be doing it, but the past two times I've made them in the glass pan, they've turned out this way... I'm just stumped on this one.

 

[siduri]

Recipe is just a basic brownie recipe..

Chocolate chips, butter, flour, sugar, vanilla, baking soda, eggs. I used Semi sweet chococlate chips with mint chocolate chips. Melted them with the butter in the microwave and then added teh otehr ingredients (minus the eggs, used an egg replacer) and cooked them for 20 min on 350 in a glass pan. I don't think the pan should be doing it, but the past two times I've made them in the glass pan, they've turned out this way... I'm just stumped on this one.

Ok, but the important question is what did you do differently when they came out bad. 

You said the past two times in the glass pan they turned out this way, so does that mean that the previous times 7you used a metal pan?

Glass doesn't conduct heat or distribute it the same way.  I wouldn't use it for baking, but if you used glass and it came out ok before then it can't be the glass. But if it came out badly every time you used glass, stop using glass.

 

Even the mixing can make a difference - mixed in a different sequence can make the texture very different. 

The only important question is: What did you do differently this time?

 

[kgraf88]

I agree that you should really think back to something you may have done differently, but in the meantime, here is one suggestion.

I'm a huge Alton Brown fan and, coincidentally, made his brownie recipe this weekend. It turned out phenomenally, and I'll never make another brownie recipe, but more importantly, he had some good advice that may help you. Try re-arranging the order you are mixing the ingredients. From what I understand you melt the butter with the chocolate, then add all the other stuff. Here is what Alton had to say...

1. Start with the eggs to create an emulsion, but don't overbeat them. This obviously doesn't quite pertain to you since egg replacement shouldn't need any whisking. However, I think you should try starting with the eggs in the bowl first.

2. Next came the dry ingredients. He sifted them, but if you haven't done that before, I think it's a textural thing and you'll be fine without sifting.

3. Butter last! He melted the butter and drizzled it in. He made it very clear that you needed to add the butter slowly while mixing, otherwise it would separate out.

Also, I made my brownies in a glass pan, and they came out with a great chewy crust and soft interior. I doubt that's the problem, especially if you've used it before.

I hope you find a solution! It'd be a sour day that I bake brownies and they don't turn out right. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/crying.gif