I don’t know how they celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in the emerald isle, but it amuses me to no end that here in the states we get decked out in green (lest we invite a pinch), make corned beef and cabbage, and enjoy Ireland’s most celebrated foamy export—Guinness extra stout.
You know St Pat’s is close at hand when the grocery stores start stacking cases of it. It’s malty, hearty, and rich, and if you want to drink your dinner, Guinness is the best way to do it.
It’s also wonderful with chocolate, which is why I’ve been making these Guinness brownies for weeks. The rich flavor of the stout just enhances chocolate in baked goods. (If you’re looking for evidence, check out our Chocolate Guinness Cake, it’s awesome!)
For these brownies, we are reducing the Guinness first, to concentrate the flavor in the liquid, and then building up our brownie batter in the same pot, with butter, sugar, cocoa, eggs, vanilla, flour, and pecans.
The result? A dense, moist, chewy chocolate brownie with the malty notes of Guinness. Great with a dollop of vanilla ice cream or a glass of milk.
(BTW, if you’ve given up alcohol and/or sugar for Lent, I think they make an exception for St. Patrick’s Day. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.)
Guinness Chocolate Brownies Recipe
PrintIngredients
- 1 cup (240 ml) Guinness Extra Stout
- 10 Tbsp (1 1/4 sticks, 140 g) butter
- 1 1/4 cup (250 g) sugar
- 3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp (85 g) unsweetened natural cocoa
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 3/4 cup (96 g) flour
- 2/3 cup (90 g) chopped pecans (optional)
Method
1 Boil Guinness, reduce by half: Place the Guinness stout in a medium saucepan (2-quart) and bring to a boil. Watch out for the stout bubbling up too much. Boil until the liquid reduces by half.
2 Progressively add butter, sugar, cocoa, salt, cinnamon to the Guinness, then let cool: Stir the butter into the reduced Guinness until melted. Add the sugar and whisk until dissolved. Whisk in the cocoa, salt, and cinnamon. Whisk until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool until just lightly warm to the touch.
3 Prepare an 8x8 baking pan: Line a square baking pan with parchment paper or foil in a way that there is overhang over two sides of the dish making it easy to remove the brownies once they are baked. Brush with a little butter or baking spray.
4 Preheat oven to 350°F.
5 Stir in the vanilla, eggs, flour, nuts: When the mixture has cooled until just lightly warm to the touch, stir in the vanilla extract and eggs. Stir in the flour until smooth. Stir in the nuts.
6 Bake: Pour into the prepared lined baking pan. Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes. Cool on a rack. When completely cool lift the brownies out of the pan. Cut into 16 to 25 squares or rectangles.
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Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.
Guinness Chocolate Brownies
which ingredients we can replace with Guinness ?
Hi Marjan, if you would like a regular brownie recipe, without Guinness, try our Best Chocolate Brownies or our Fudgy Chocolate Brownies
do you use all-purpose flour in brownies?
Yes.
What a good idea to include Guiness. I make a similar recipe but with Stout. Will give this a try. When I lived in the US, it always amazed me that people with no Irish ties nor heritage chose to celebrate St Paddy’s day in such a big way. Just an excuse for a party if you ask me. Even in London, where I lived for a while, it was not as big as in the US. Interesting???
Just realized what you call Guiness is the same thing that I call Stout:)