Beer brownies made with coffee stout beer. Your Valentine wants his brownies made with beer. Brownies for two featuring your favorite beer.
Re-sharing these bites of heavenly brownies. With over 23,000 pins on Pinterest, you know they're delicious!
Trust me. He told me. He wants a super thick fudgy brownie laced with his favorite beer.
And these beer brownies are sooo it.
Plus, it only uses 1 beer from his stash. I'm not trying to be sexist here---in my house, we each have our own beer stash. Mine is up here in the fridge--quick access to my fruity shandy beers. His beer is in the basement fridge--all dark and shady.
I will confess to stealing an oatmeal stout from his stash every now and then. I used to think people only ordered dark beers to prove their manliness. And then, my lactation coach told me to drink dark beer. Now I think dark beer is synonymous with lactation, and that's just about as girly as you can get. Sorry, boys.
To make these brownies, I stole a coffee stout from his stash.
See how thick these brownies are? I basically doubled my usual small batch brownie recipe.
I was worried it wouldn't work, but I was so glad to be proven wrong. Biting into these brownies is almost like biting into fudge. Deep, dark fudge. I love it.
You'll see that I used cocoa powder and 2 squares of unsweetened baking chocolate in these beer brownies. I really believe in my heart of hearts that the best brownies are made with unsweetened chocolate. However, you can omit the unsweetened chocolate, or use half the amount. These brownies hit you in the face with their rich chocolate flavor.
Start with an entire stick of butter (praise Jesus!), granulated sugar, cocoa powder, and chopped unsweetened chocolate. Like I said, the unsweetened chocolate part is entirely optional and only for those who love love love chocolate.
Best way to melt chocolate for beer brownies:
After microwaving the butter and chocolate on HIGH for two 30-second pulses, let it cool for 1 minute. Then, stir in the egg white, vanilla, and salt. After they are well-incorporated, add the flour.
Now, you're going to roll up your shirt sleeves and give this brownie batter 50 strokes. I explain this in the Dessert for Two cookbook, but I'll go over it again--in most baked goods, you want to minimize stirring for fear of activating the gluten in the flour. When gluten is activated, it makes baked goods chewy. But when it comes to brownies, we want chewy! (Side note: this is why gluten free breads have zero chew to them...see also: zero taste LOL).
Scrape the beautiful batter into your loaf pan, and bake for 40-45 minutes. It's a long time, I know.
Add 1 cup of his favorite beer to a small sauce pan; I used coffee stout here. Chocolate and coffee love each other so.
Boil it down until it's only ⅓ cup of liquid. Keep an eye on it--the foam can over-flow.
You're going to use 4 tablespoons of the beer concentrate in the beer brownies. The final tablespoon is used in the frosting. (One-third cup is 5.33 tablespoons...drink the remaining 0.33 tablespoons....)
I hope you know I'm kidding. Use the remaining portion of the boiled beer for the frosting.
I cut these super rich brownies in 8 small pieces, but your burly man can probably take down at least half of these beer brownies in one sitting.
Happy Valentine's Day, dudes! You might also like my Brownie Sundae!
These frosted beer brownies are a real treat!Beer Brownies
Ingredients
For the beer brownies:
For the frosting:
Instructions
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
9
Serving Size:
1
Amount Per Serving:
Calories: 308Total Fat: 22gSaturated Fat: 13gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 68mgSodium: 72mgCarbohydrates: 23gFiber: 1gSugar: 15gProtein: 3g
Kate says
I was searching for a beer brownie recipe to try and recreate the ones from Kyra's Bake Shop in Portland when I came across yours. I was intrigued until I came to your comment slamming gluten-free breads... which is completely false! Sure, there are tons of crappy gluten-free baked goods out there, same as there are tons of sub-par gluten-filled things as well. Kyra's baked goods, for example, are four-time winners on Cupcake Wars and all her treats are 100% gluten-free, which the judges said they couldn't even tell the difference. More flavorful than many gluten-filled cakes, to be sure!
There are so many of us like Kyra, who are gluten-free thanks to an auto-immune disorder, whose food needs gets a bad rap when people make snap judgements based on one crummy gluten-free experience and spread the negativity around. Please understand comments like this hurt our community, who try so hard to get friends and family to see that we can eat just as good as the rest of you - and sometimes better! I truly hope you get the chance to try some amazing gluten-free baked goods like I have (many that I make myself!) that will turn that judgement on its head.
Brittany says
These brownies are to die for. I've been looking for a go-to brownie recipe for a long time and I think I've found it! I chose to use Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Stout since it has bourbon and coffee flavor, both of which are amazing with chocolate. I'll definitely be making these again and again!
Christina Lane says
Yay, Brittany! Thank you :)
Tara says
Looks delicious!
I'm thinking about making these for Valentine's day, but I only have a pyrex that must be about 10*10 inches. Would you recommend doubling the recipe in this case?
Thanks for sharing!
Christina Lane says
Ooh, I'm not sure Tara. The only thing I can recommend is doubling it and baking in a 8x8" pan (which is roughly double the size of the bread loaf pan). I'm not sure about a 10" pan. You could double, and maybe you'll get thinner brownies? I would reduce the cooking time in that case. Sorry, I can't be of more help-I only test the recipes on this site as-written and I rely on readers to say if they doubled or tripled. Best of luck! And let me know :)
Tara says
So I ended up making these in the 10*10 pan. I have a convection microwave, which usually works just fine when baking. I, however, distracted by default, put the brownies in for an extra 5 or 10 mins in the microwave setting instead of the convection oven one, so they dried out a bit. Other than that, the recipe is very fudgy and rich; my boyfriend usually eats brownies mercilessly, but after one of these he had had enough. He said they were good (despite my mess up), but very filling. I should also mention I did add the optional dark chocolate. So I'd probably hesitate to recommend doubling this recipe unless you'll be sharing with many. Other than that, great recipe for rich brownies :P
Michele G says
I made these with Saugatuck Neopolitan milk stout (flavored like the ice cream) and they were fantastic! I was on the fence about making the frosting (not generally a fan of frosting on my brownies), but I am so glad I did!
Christina Lane says
ohhhhhhhhh milk stout sounds SO good. I've been drinking a chocolate milk stout lately, and I'm obsessed! I'm glad you made the frosting, too :) Thanks for writing, Michele! :) <3
Carlos At Spoonabilities says
Hmm. Beer brownies... Sounds pretty amazingly good!
This is the first time that I see beer and brownies together. Love it!
Jeff Winett says
Never having heard of beer reduction, these brownies intrigue big time. I may make these before I get an answer to this question, but here goes anyway. Would love to know why the yolk of an egg is purposely left out in this recipe.
Christina Lane says
Hi Jeff,
It's just the way to cookie crumbles when scaling down recipes for me. I've been scaling down recipes for 8 years now, and sometimes I use the egg yolk and sometimes the egg white. In general, I use the yolk for fattiness and richness, and the white for lift and fluff. In this particular recipe, I had enough richness from the chocolate, you know? So I just used the egg white to bind everything together. There is an entire section on my site with ways to use up leftover egg whites and leftover egg yolks.
Happy baking!
Jeff Winett says
So glad I checked back here before proceeding. Now it's full steam ahead! Thank you.
Culzean says
I have kerrygold salted butter, will this affect the recipe in a bad way?
Christina Lane says
Nope, just leave out the salt when you're making the brownies. There's enough salt in the butter. I LOVE KERRYGOLD <3 It's all I bake with, too :)
Kristen says
Hello! I just made these with a coffee milk stout and they took forever to bake - I'm thinking I may not have reduced the beer enough, but I let it simmer for a good 20 minutes! After 45 minutes the brownies were still bubbling (from the alcohol, perhaps?), which I've never noticed before. It very well could be my oven, but I wanted to see if you had any suggestions? The brownies are still delicious, just chewier on the outside. The good news is I have five more beers to try them again :)
Lionel says
What could you replace the beer with to give it a similar consistancy?
Christina Lane says
How about coffee? That sounds good to me, too :)
Maureen says
I’ve used coffee and espresso in my brownies for years and it is delicious. Espresso gives it a stronger coffee taste, and is my preference. I even sub it in when using boxed mixes!
Julie says
So, what would happen if I made these with the whole egg? I suck so badly at separating eggs. Thanks!
Christina Lane says
Hi Julie,
I don't recommend it since it's a small-batch recipe. The extra egg yolk will throw it off. You could use egg whites in a carton instead?