Dark Chocolate Brownies prove that sometimes the simplest desserts are the best. Rich and fudgy with a bold cocoa flavor, these one-bowl brownies are a dark chocolate lover’s dream.
Love brownies? Be sure to try our delicious Oreo Brownies! Or give our Brookies a try next, the sweet combo of brownie and cookie.
Why These Brownies Work
Do you like your brownies light and airy or dense and fudgy?
I’m firmly in the fudgy brownies camp. My idea of the perfect brownie is one that’s tiniest bit underdone with a gooey chocolatey center and a few cracks on top.
- DARK chocolate for a bolder, richer flavor.
- 7 ingredient brownie recipe!
- Moist center with crackly tops.
- Dusted with powdered sugar.
This brownie recipe takes hardly any effort to make. The batter comes together in one bowl with no special equipment needed.
Bonus: your kitchen will smell like chocolate paradise when these brownies are in the oven!
If you prefer a THICKER brownie, try our fudgy brownie recipe. Truly one of the best!
Ingredient Notes
- Dark unsweetened cocoa powder. Use a good quality cocoa powder for best brownies. Hershey’s Special Dark and Ghirardelli dark cocoa are both good choices. I find the cheaper brands, including Nestle, negatively affect the taste of the brownies by giving them a bitter aftertaste.
- Melted butter. Using melted butter produces a chewier brownie with that soft moist center I love.
- Chocolate chips – I fold these into the batter before baking to make the brownies even more fudgy and chocolatey. Semi-sweet or dark chocolate morsels are perfect.
Easy Instructions
Melt the butter in a microwave safe mixing bowl. Combine the melted butter with all the remaining brownie ingredients.
Pour the batter into a square baking dish. Bake for about 25 minutes. Let them cool completely.
Sprinkle powdered sugar over the tops of cooled brownies before cutting and serving.
Tips and Tricks
- Spread your favorite chocolate frosting over these brownies instead of powdered sugar if you prefer.
- The dark chocolate brownies will look a little underdone when they come out of the oven. I like them that way! They’ll continue setting up a bit as they cool.
- For a more well done brownie, add an additional 3 to 5 minutes to the baking time.
- Line your baking pan with parchment paper. When the brownies are done cooling, you can grab the ends of the parchment paper to slide them out of the pan easily.
- Take it a step further. Add marshmallows and icing like we did with these marshmallow brownies!
Recipe FAQs
Yes, this recipe will work with any unsweetened cocoa powder. The darker varieties have a more robust flavor which I especially love in brownies.
Brownies can be tricky to cut without tearing. That’s especially true for soft brownies like these! I recommend using a plastic knife to cut brownies. Use medium pressure and a smooth stroke to give the brownies clean edges. Wipe brownie crumbs from the knife between each cut.
Nuts are a delicious crunchy addition to these dark chocolate brownies! Add 1 cup of chopped walnuts or pecans to the batter before baking if you like nuts in your brownies.
These do not need to be refrigerated but they can be! They’ll firm up a bit more as they chill–and I love the flavor of these cold. If you like them as they are, store the brownies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.
More Easy Dessert Recipes
- Best Peanut Butter Cookies
- Bread Pudding
- Chocolate Banana Cake
- Cake Mix Brownies
- Pecan Pie Brownies
- Hummingbird Cake
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Dark Chocolate Brownie Recipe
Ingredients
- ¾ cup unsalted butter melted
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup dark chocolate unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup semi-sweet morsels
- 2 Tablespoons powdered sugar optional garnish
Instructions
- In a glass bowl, melt butter in microwave for 30 seconds to one minute. Add sugar, flour, cocoa and eggs. Stir with a spoon until well combined. Fold in morsels
- Line a 9-inch square baking dish with parchment paper. Pour batter into dish, spreading evenly. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25-28 minutes. I like my brownies a little under done and fudgy. You can add about 3-5 minutes for more well done, if desired.
- Cool completely. Top with powdered sugar or your favorite frosting recipe. ENJOY.
Notes
- For even more dark chocolate flavor, swap out the semi-sweet morsels for dark chocolate chips.
- Spread your favorite chocolate frosting over these brownies instead of powdered sugar if you prefer.
- The dark chocolate brownies will look a little underdone when they come out of the oven. I like them that way! They’ll continue setting up a bit as they cool.
- For a more well done brownie, add an additional 3 to 5 minutes to the baking time.
- Line your baking pan with parchment paper. When the brownies are done cooling, you can grab the ends of the parchment paper to slide them out of the pan easily.
- Store brownies in airtight container at room temperature or freeze for up to 3 months.
Nutrition
If you love chocolate, this Dark Chocolate Brownies recipe is the only brownie recipe you’ll ever need! Gooey, fudgy and decadent brownies are easy to make with simple ingredients.
These were pretty good! I would recommend using a scant 1/4 tsp of salt as well as tsp of vanilla. I even added some milk to thin the batter out. Naturally, my bake time was a bit longer (~32 min total). Texture was a lot like the inside of an Oreo truffle. Moist but also very dense… that’s a good thing!
Will use this recipe again. Thank you, Aimee!
Great tips, glad you enjoyed it!!
Tried these last night, and they were absolutely delicious! Such a quick and easy recipe too. I was feeling a little over the top, so after pouring the first half of the batter in the pan, I placed a layer of mini Twix bars on top, pressed them down a bit, then poured the remaining batter over everything……my boyfriend said they were the best brownies he’d ever had! Making another pan tonight, but this time with Twix and Kit Kats….don’t judge me. 🙂
Can we be honest and just rename these PMS BROWNIES??
I love them!
Trying these now but i added candy corn. Looks delicious!
Oooh that sounds like a delicious treat!
I’ve been looking for a recipe like this–they are so so very delicious! This will be my new go-to recipe. Thanks for sharing!!
Hi dear,
very tempting recipe to try….. just wanna know it does not need baking powder.
Thnx
made some today. super dense and intensely chocolaty! thanks :*
You’re quite welcome 🙂
Agree all around with Mary, 3/30/14. I wanted to like these brownies and will never turn down chocolate, but they are so sweet that I have no appetite to try more than the first bite. Family agrees, and we are all chocolate fanatics! I cannot imagine topping them with caramel sauce. Just thought about the fact that there is no vanilla, nor salt, in the recipe and wonder if that may also have affected the end result. I did sprinkle the finished brownies with a bit of coarse sea salt while still warm so that it would stick, but that did not help the overall cloying sweetness. Sorry, however picture was great, and the recipe did sound good. I may adjust proportions and try again.
I tried making it turned out excellent very easy n nice recipe first timemy family enjoyed my brownie
Absolutely stellar! The quintessential all-American brownie. Fudgey and dense, sweet but not too, thin, firm top. This goes together in a flash, which when you think about it, is scary! Using Dutch process dark cocoa is absolutely crucial to the success of this recipe. Those who found them to be underdone either have oven calibration problems, or they are unfamiliar with a proper, home made brownie, which most food historians agree was intended by some poor, hapless baker way back in the day, to be a chocolate cake. The leavening was mistakenly left out, and voila! The brownie was invented. It should be pointed out that as a result, these rise very, very little. What you see going into the oven is pretty much what you get coming out. The one slight adjustment that I have found works better for our palates is to add 1/4 tsp salt, which increases depth of flavor and fulfills that elusive taste of “something missing.” Salt also rounds out the sweetness, which will be of benefit to those who thought this too sweet. I have even mixed as written, filled the pan, and sprinkled lightly with fleur de sel. Everyone went crazy for that! I’m a retired chef, having also spent time in the pastry kitchen, and have made countless brownie recipes over the years. Have to say, these are some of the very finest to come out of my kitchen.
I made these with morsels/chocolate chunks. They took for ever to cook and were diabetically sweet. They were definitely fudgy but I think your recipe is off by about a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of flour (as in it needs it) . Possibly less sugar as well.
Heavenly brownies,these came out to be..i’m never gonna have it out now…everytime I do, it’ll be made by me..these are so easy!!!
These were delicious in flavor! I baked a tad too long, but was able to choke some down anyway! tee hee. Tomorrow I will crumble the remainder and serve with pudding and whipped cream! I have only made scratch brownies with baker’s chocolate, but these were just as good and dark and cocoaey!
So glad you enjoyed the brownies. Pudding and whipped cream sounds like a delicious combo!
nice pics! i really prefer dark chocolate to any other. the recipe is so simple and tempting! i made a batch myself, with just a few swaps: used 1 C sugar and 1/4 C brown sugar, added a splash of vanilla extract, and espresso. also added a pinch of salt to complement the sweetness. the pics of the dark chocolate brownies with the caramel frosting looks soooooooooooo good, but i didn’t have the ingredients for that. they look absolutely gorgeous tho, thanks for the recipes! i will definitely come back later for the caramel frosting! 😉
Made these brownies for a meeting. They were very popular. Great recipe, if I can make them, anyone can.
I made them today. Very good! But you have to like dark chocolate to appreciate them.
I made them in a 9×13 pan. But I doubled the recipe so that they would be thick. I had them in the oven for 25minutes and they cooked just right.
Wow, need to comment again. These are amazing, thanks so much for sharing! They are like fudge. So moist! I love them and will definitely be making them in the future.
I had to bake these for an extra 40 minutes because the middle would not set. They were burnt on the edges and totally raw inside after over an hour. Out of the oven and straight into the trash.
Well done your brownies look A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Um , i m just think can i replace the dark chocolate cocoa powder with dark chocolate ? Or it s not the same 🙂 ? Thanks 😀
Nope, not the same. Sorry!!
This is the easiest, quickest, best brownie recipe I have ever tried. I just used it for the base of chocolate peanut butter brownies and they are DELICIOUS! This is now my new go-to brownie recipe. I’ve been searching for a while, and this is it!!! Thank you thank you thank you!
I love brownies, but never made them before. Thanks for sharing the recipe. Thus, I have question/comment:
1. Every time I bake something, I always use at least 1/2 tea spoon of baking soda or powder, how come brownie dough, does not need it?
2. The amount of flour is also surprisingly little for a cake. Does the cocoa powder compensate for it?
thanks