One of the recipes that first got me hooked on Alton Brown’s show Good Eats was his first brownie recipe, which he calls cocoa brownies and featured on the legendary “Art of Darkness II” episode, as well as in his book Good Eats: Volume 1, The Early Years. (He later modified the baking technique in a blog post to create a gooier end product, but I haven’t tried this.) I loved this recipe because the brownies tasted like cocoa rather than like fudge, and hit that perfect textural note that isn’t too fudgy but isn’t too much like chocolate cake. It gets lift from the eggs rather than baking powder or soda, and using brown sugar for half of the sweetener introduces a more complex and slightly darker note. The only alteration I would ever make was to swap out half of the butter for half a cup of a neutral vegetable oil, because all-butter baked goods dry out too quickly, while baked goods made with at least some oil will stay moist for several more days.
So here’s my gluten-free adjustment to Alton Brown’s cocoa brownies:
4 large eggs (they don’t have to be organic or cage-free, but I do prefer them for many reasons)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
4 ounces (1 stick) melted unsalted butter
½ cup neutral vegetable oil (soybean, corn, sunflower, safflower, canola)
2 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp salt
1¼ cup (about 150 g) cocoa powder, either natural or Dutch-processed (my preference)
½ cup (about 70 g) King Arthur gluten-free multi-purpose flour
⅛ tsp xanthan gum
1. Grease and flour an 8×8 metal baking pan or line it with an aluminum foil sling for easy removal. Preheat the oven to 300 F.
2. In your stand mixer, whisk the four eggs until yellow and foamy. Add both sugars, the salt, and the vanilla extract and whisk until fully combined.
3. Combine the oil and melted butter, and whisk them into the egg/sugar mixture.
4. Sift the cocoa powder, gluten-free flour, and xanthan gum together and add to the bowl. Mix on low speed until no dry clumps or pockets remain, scraping the sides and bottom if necessary.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for one hour (yes, it’s much longer), testing the center with a toothpick, which should come out nearly clean. The center may remain a bit gooey but that’s a good thing. Let them cool to room temperature before attempting to cut them. Just trust me on that.