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Guinness Brownies anyone?
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 more evidence, check out our Chocolate Guinness Cake. It’s awesome!)
How to Bring Out More Guinness Flavor In These Brownies
For these brownies, we are reducing the Guinness 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.)
Love Guinness? Try these other recipes
Guinness Chocolate Brownies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup (240 ml) Guinness Extra Stout
- 10 Tbsp (1 1/4 sticks, 140 g) unsalted 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 Preheat oven to 350°F. Line an 8x8 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.
2 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.
3 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.
4 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.
5 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
I’ve made them twice and there will be a third time! The Guinness makes the chocolate flavor even more intense! Although I love the cinnamon I’m thinking of trying out a batch and swapping the cinnamon for just a pinch of cayenne pepper … with vanilla ice cream I think they’d also be delicious.
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They are good, the flavor is right on, the Guinness is not overpowering the cocoa, but they are not gooey, more towards the cake side. Love the dark color. I followed the recipe as is, no nuts.
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can ground flax seed be used instead of some or all of the flour, how about wheat flour as well ? thanks!
Hi Brian! When I swap out one flour for another, I typically do it in 1/4 cup increments to see how the recipe will respond. I’d start with that, but just know that you may need a little more liquid because wheat flour loves liquid! :) As for the ground flax seeds, I’m betting you can probably add a tablespoon to this recipe to see how it tastes, and take it from there, but it’s not going to behave like flour does, so I wouldn’t necessarily opt for a 1-to-1 switch with that ingredient and flour. Let us know how it goes!
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.