I love brownies, and you probably do too. They’re sweet, chewy and rewarding to bake. But not everyone feels like committing to the time and effort it takes to make them. We have work and stuff to do, for crying out loud! You could buy some, sure. But some folks adore the fun in making them themselves.
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So as surprising as this sounds, there actually is a brownie recipe that’s way quicker and easier to prepare and it’ll spare you a load of time. The secret lies in lemons!
When life gives you lemons, you make lemon brownies!
This how-to comes courtesy of Jenny Can Cook on YouTube. If for some reason you can’t play the video, then I’ll help you out and write it down here.
First things first : Find an 8×8 inch square baking pan and preheat your oven to 350∘F (which is about 176.667∘C ). This should go without saying but make sure you have all the right items and kitchen tools first. Wouldn’t want to get halfway through the baking process only to realize that you don’t have a whisk or tin foil!
Now, adjust the foil to fit around the corners and sides of the baking pan. Let the edges of it hang over the top of the pan, so you can grip it from there later on.
Jenny uses her knuckles, which she recommends doing if you don’t want your fingernails to break through the tinfoil.
Obviously, you need lemons for this. A good idea would be to zest and juice them in advance. A handy lemon zester is your best friend here. It’ll give you those fine, smoothly zested lemon bits that you need.
Provided that you don’t have one of these, a typical box-grater for cheese should work just fine. Use the side with the really small holes!
Then comes the fun part. Get your mixing bowls out!
The simplicity of this recipe is about to show itself. All you do is mix them in a single bowl and bake them. And we’re about to see just how. These are the things you need :
1 cup of all purpose flour
3/4 of a cup of sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda.
In true baking fashion, you need 2 eggs too.
The crazy bit is that you don’t even need to mix or beat the eggs for this. Just throw them all in the bowl with the previous 4 ingredients.
The next ingredient is low-fat yogurt, about 1/4 of a cup of it. Then 3 tablespoons of oil, for which canola or light olive oil are great choices.
Now take 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice you squeezed earlier (you did, right?) and add them into the bowl too. Follow it up with the zest from the lemons you zested earlier.
If the bowl’s contents look like an absolute mess, just know that you’re not doing anything wrong. It’s all part of the plan.
And then mix them up in the bowl altogether. Jenna notes the lack of butter in this recipe might have caught your attention – it probably did!
And that’s exactly why this recipe is so unbelievable. With hardly any complicated steps, and all the ingredients going in one bowl, it almost feels like cheating. Don’t convince yourself that it is cheating though, because it’s not! This is a baking recipe through and through.
What do you do from here? The answer is mix! Mix all the contends in the bowl thoroughly until it’s all smooth and lump-free. If it looks like it’s reached smoothness-levels that satisfy you, pour the mixture into the foil-covered baking pan. Make sure it’s all evenly spread out on the pan’s surface.
Then into the oven it goes. That’s right, the one you preheated to 350∘F before you did anything else.
You want to wait 20 minutes, so get a timer out. Wouldn’t want your precious lemon brownies to burn now, would we?
What can you do in those 20 minutes, though? 20 minutes usually leaves you enough time to watch a YouTube video, read a book, or play Animal Crossing on your Nintendo Switch.
However, there’s no time for any of those things, because it’s time for you to make the glaze!
For this, you need 1 cup, and a heaping cup at that, of confectioner’s sugar plus some more lemon zest. Then, very carefully and slowly add 2-4 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
The caution is necessary, because the lemon juice alters the consistency of the mixture real quick. Adding all of it too hastily will leave you with an excessively runny glaze mixture, and there’s no way to go back once that happens.
Yes, more lemon juice and zest! What did you think you were signing up for when you started this recipe?
You want to mix the contents until they look right, which you’ll easily know. Look out for the syrup or (naturally) glaze-like consistency.
Have 20 minutes gone by yet? If so, then that means your brownies are ready to leave the oven. Make sure to have oven-mitts on when you take out the tray. Let them sit out to cool a bit for 10 minutes or so.
For this next step, whip out some wax paper. Pull the solid mass of brownies out of the tray using the free-standing bits of foil that you left earlier, and take note of how easy that makes it to pull everything out.
Now it’s time to introduce your glaze to the brownies.
You made them just for each other, after all. Get a turner (or anything that’ll let you spread stuff over a big surface) and use it to spread your glaze all over the mass of brownies. Cover as much of the brownies top surface as possible, and don’t fret if some of it drips down the sides.
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Let a few minutes pass before you start cutting them. It’s fine, the brownies won’t get impatient. Cut them evenly and serve!
A spectacular recipe that doesn’t require any spectacular effort to pull off. If you prefer a video tutorial, then all you need to do is play the clip below. Share this recipe too so other people can try it out!
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