Butternut Squash Brownies Recipe - Good Cheap Eats Budget Recipes (2024)

FAQs

Is it cheaper to buy brownie mix or make from scratch? ›

A clever hybrid between cake and cookie, brownies are a dense, chocolaty bar cookie baked in a rectangular pan; they can be fudge-like, cake-like, or anything in between. It was about three times more expensive to make the brownies from scratch than to use a mix, owing mostly to the cost of chocolate and walnuts.

They give brownies a lighter, drier, and more cake-like texture. If you prefer this over the chewy variety, then go ahead and crack in that additional egg. On the other hand, too many eggs will yield brownies that are hard, heavy, and tough.

One change is to use milk or heavy cream instead of water. This change will make brownies more moist and gooey since milk is more fatty and flavorful than water. A second change is to use butter instead of oil. For similar reasons to using milk, butter adds a rich and more decadent quality to the batter.

If you like chewy, sticky brownies, I recommend: Betty Crocker Dark Chocolate Brownie Mix. If you like light, less dense brownies with a picture-perfect sugar top that flakes when sliced, I recommend: Duncan Hines Chewy Fudge Brownie Mix.

Cocoa Brownies Are More Cakey And Customizable

Not only is cocoa powder more concentrated than chocolate, but since it has less moisture, you need fewer additives like flour to balance it out, compounding the cocoa flavor even more.

Note that while some brownie recipes do call for melted butter instead of oil, the butter can aerate the batter, altering the texture of the brownies and making them cakey rather than fudgy. So, while you can substitute butter for oil and vice versa, remember that it might alter the texture.

Fudgy brownies have a higher fat-to-flour ratio than cakey ones. So add more fat—in this case, butter and chocolate. A cakey batch has more flour and relies on baking powder for leavening. The amount of sugar and eggs does not change whether you're going fudgy or cakey.

A good quality brownie mix.

Use Grapeseed Oil as the vegetable oil. I use Grapeseed oil in all my baking where oil is an ingredient. It's light and flavorless, so that allows the cake or the brownie flavor to really shine.

We already know that adding espresso and coffee flavor to chocolate desserts supercharges chocolate flavor, and the same principle applies here. Using coffee in your brownie mix will result in better, more chocolaty brownies.

Adding a layer of cream cheese, marshmallow fluff, caramel, or peanut butter goes a long way towards turning a mix into something special. You can add this layer before or after baking the brownies.

What does olive oil do to brownies? ›

It makes them richer, adds a fudge-like texture, and enhances the flavor of the chocolate. In addition, it's an incredible preservative, so the brownies stay moist for longer! Olive oil has been gaining popularity in recent years as a substitute for butter and other vegetable oils in baked goods.

Best Butter for Standard Baking: Cabot

I separated standard and specialty baking into two categories because if you're simply baking a quick bread or brownies in which case butter isn't the prominent flavor, it's not necessary to spend more money on a higher-fat butter.

If you want a fudgy chocolate brownie, use melted butter. For cakey brownies, beating softened butter and sugar together to create air pockets will make your brownies lighter and cakier.

When you add the cost of an egg, 1/2 cup vegetable oil and a cup of chopped nuts, brownies costs about 16 cents each. It will take about 50 minutes to make the mix. — From scratch, the cost for 30 brownies with nuts is $3.65, or about 12 cents a brownie. It will take 70 minutes if you follow the recipe.

The box mix is about $1.50 cheaper and requires less effort, energy, and attention. And really, the flavor isn't that bad…just not that remarkable. Homemade cakes can sometimes be fussy, especially if you don't make them very often, but dang!

Is it Worth Home-Baking Anymore? Turns out, whilst baking from scratch at home is still cheaper than buying a cake from a professional bakery, it would actually be cheaper to Fake Bake. You don't need to turn on the oven, saving you on energy.

The only difference is the intensity of the chocolate and overall richness. For my recipe, it has a slightly deeper chocolate flavor due to the use of both real chocolate and cocoa powder. My brownies also have that same airy quality to them as box mix brownies, but with a more dense texture.