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Aubrey comes in every morning at 6:00 to bake for a few hours before school. At sixteen going on seventeen, she’s a remarkably good baker. (Way to go Mom!) But brownies can be tough, especially when you’re baking multiple pans in two ovens.
There are oven thermometers in each oven and she is careful to make sure that the temperature is at 350 degrees before she puts the pans in the oven. But the air circulates differently with multiple pans and the temperature rises and falls, especially when you’re opening the oven to check on your brownies.
You can’t tell when the brownies are done by the color and brownies are supposed to be gooey so a toothpick is imprecise. I usually put my hand on the brownies to see how firm they are but I have a million years of experience and that’s not precise either.
I told her to bake them until the internal temperature reaches 180 degrees as measured with a probe-type thermometer. That was a guess. But if we like the results at 180 degrees, that’s what we’ll do every time.
I decided I really should research that and went to the internet. As is often the case on the internet, there was a range of answers from 170 degrees to 210 degrees. Harold McGee’s book, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, is one of my kitchen bible’s, an amazing resource. Harold says there is no set temperature for brownies and cakes. That makes sense because there is such a range of recipes and ingredients.
But you can find the perfect temperature for your favorite recipe. If you think it’s done, stick a thermometer in it and read the internal temperature. The probe should be angled into the center of the cake, not close to the pan which is going to be hotter than the batter. If the brownies are perfect, then write that target temperature in the margin next to the recipe. Bake that recipe to that target every time.
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Temperatures for Other Baked Goods
The only way to tell if your bread is baked is with a thermometer. I bake my soft sandwich breads from 190 to 195 degrees. That’s a few degrees more than necessary but I worry about cooler spots in the loaf. For crusty breads, I bake the bread to 210 degrees.
For cheesecakes and other custards, bake to 165 degrees. Always get the temperature over 140 degrees in any baked good, especially with eggs. That’s the temperature that kills bacteria.
Our Favorite Brownie Recipe:
Chocolate Lover’s Brownie Recipe
Though this recipe has 3/4 pound of chocolate plus 1/2 cup cocoa, it is not outrageous. It is a large batch filling a 9 x13-inch about 1 1/2 inches deep. Only ten percent of those who tried it thought it was too chocolaty. For the cocoa, we used our Ramstad-Breda Medium Dark Cocoa at about twice the cocoa butter content of most store brands.
Ingredients
10 ounces semisweet baking chocolate
2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
6 large eggs
2 2/3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cocoa
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
Directions
Line a 9×13 baking pan with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave, stirring frequently. Be careful not to burn the chocolate.
In a large bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt together until the mixture is smooth. Stir in the melted chocolate mixture.
Add the cocoa and mix well. Add the flour and stir until just combined. Pour the finished batter into the pan.
Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few sticky crumbs. (Better yet, use a thermometer.) Let the brownies cool completely in the pan on the rack. Once cool, lift the cake from the pan and cut into servings with a serrated knife on a bread board.
Hope this helps with your baking!
About the Author
Dennis Weaver has burned food from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Miami, Florida. He is the founder of The Prepared Pantry in Rigby, Idaho and the author of “How to Bake: The Art and Science of Baking” available as an E-book or as a Kindle book on Amazon. Dennis lives in Rigby, Idaho, with his wife, Merri Ann. They have five wonderful children and six beautiful granddaughters.
