Again, personal taste is the deciding factor. I like Ghirardelli’s just fine! But it’s a really sweet brownie inside and out to me. Sometimes the “homemade” recipes just are a different animal, IMO. Less “sweet”, more depth of chocolate flavor. And often a different consistency. Again both are good, but though brownie recipes usually tell you to not overbake (which is true), I still don’t want a undercooked, gooey, greasy-ish brownie. All personal taste!
I make a blonde brownie that has always been a favorite and requested at various school events and just when my kids have had sleepovers. I got the recipe in Cosmo , back when I actually read it 
I have made a variation of it, omitting the chocolate chips and subbing the vanilla with orange extract, then making a glaze with juice from an orange and confectioners sugar
Another good one is a " snicker doodle " blonde brownie that I found on Pinterest. It is really good , but the batter is hard to spread
This makes a dense cake-like brownie and fudge-like frosting:
Batter:
½ cup margarine
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 cup flour
1 16 oz. can Hershey’s syrup
Cream the margarine and sugar together, and then beat in the eggs. Add flour and syrup, and blend with a mixer on low speed until smooth. Pour into ungreased 13x9 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-22 minutes. Cool before frosting.
Frosting:
1 cup sugar
4 Tbsp margarine
¼ cup milk
¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
Combine sugar, margarine, and milk in a medium sized cooking pan. Bring mixture to a boil, and then boil for 1 minute only. Add the melted chocolate chips, and stir until smooth. Let cool for a few minutes, and then spread evenly over the cake.
I am sure America’s Test Kitchen recipes for brownies must be good. I checked online but you need to put your email address in to access the recipe.
Another Ghirardelli mix fan. I haven’t tried it but my friend switches the oil for melted butter with the box mix. She feels it makes them taste better.
My mother always used to make brownies from a mix…Duncan Hines. To me ,they were too sweet , flat and greasy.
The Joy of Cooking brownies are the go-to in our house too. The trick is to beat the eggs with the sugar a whole lot before adding the chocolate/butter mixture. That’s how you get the crackly top.
Ghirardelli double chocolate, but use stout instead of water. Top with chocolate ganache. Yum!
Does anyone have a recipe for a Peanut Butter Blondie?
Betty Crocker brownie mix with some Nestle’s semisweet chips mixed in. Come out perfect every time!
My favorite is the recipe on the round box of Ghirardelli Ground Chocolate and Cocoa. I add 60% dark chocolate El Rey discos. (Large flat chips of couverture, formulated to melt smoothly, not to hang together like a regular chocolate chip. Although I’m sure using semi-sweet chips or chunks would be good, too.) I usually ice the pan with dark choclate ganache with some triple sec in it. Cut them into 1-1 1/2" wide rectangles rather than squares.
I don’t like nuts in them.
Used to love Betty Crocker brownie mix then used Pillsbury- new favorite. Cooking less time is always best for me.
Couple - oops, coming up with several- of things I don’t understand in cooking/baking. Why unsalted butter then adding salt. Using kosher salt when it is going to dissolve anyhow so the grain size doesn’t matter (especially when the trend is to list amounts for one when they are different volumes and I would need to calculate). The no gluten fad for so many who have no issues with it. Special probiotic foods and pills instead of a fiber rich diet and regular yogurts.
I also read raves about thus and such food item- the secret ingredient is coffee. Ruins it for me since I can taste it in tiramisu so I know that bit in anything else will be bad for me. Coffee smells good to me no amount of cream or sugar can make it palatable. Same for cilantro (love ground coriander)- it ruins foods for me. I don’t sense the soapiness to cilantro but it just tastes awful to me. I guess these are far better than intolerances some need to deal with.
Back to brownies. I like cherry flavor. I have added the juice of a 10 ounce jar of maraschino cherries instead of the water (more liquid than called for, it works) plus the halved cherries to a boxed mix- for a 9 x 13 pan. When I couldn’t find 10 oz jars I used one 16 oz jar divided between two batches of the brownies. I freeze cut brownies after the first day to keep them fresh and not eat as many so twice as many means less oven time and cleanup.
I prefer fudgy brownies to cake ones. No nuts.
To me, there are two distinct types of brownies. There’s the light fluffy type that have a higher flour content, and there’s the more dense, richer type with less flour. I love them both when done well.
I’ve been unsuccessful at making a good fluffy-type brownie at home (from scratch) but I have found much unqualified success with the dense, rich type. I use the recipe linked below with Guittard Cocoa Rouge cocoa powder and I also toss in a mix of Guittard 31% and 48% chocolate chips. The quality of the cocoa powder makes a huge difference; W bought me Hershey’s cocoa powder to use once and it really was noticeable (not in a good way).
Sometimes I’ll also add a cream cheese mixture on top (8oz pack of cream cheese, a tablespoon of flour, egg yolk or two, I forget how much sugar, mix it all together then swirl it in on top before baking).
The author of the recipe is Alice Medrich of Cocolat fame (we used her shop for our wedding cake). The recipe produces more of an adult “foodie” type of brownie in that it’s very dense and chocolaty, but isn’t particularly sweet. If you want a more traditionally sweet flavor then you’ll want to increase the sugar by about 20% or more. These are very rich and gooey so might not actually be great for guests that are wandering around eating with their fingers from a napkin.
My favorite is one I kind of made up:
melt 4 oz unsweetened chocolate in 1/2 c coconut oil in the microwave until just melted.
separately - mix 4 eggs, 2 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp salt, 1.25 c white sugar, 1/2 heaping c brown sugar, SMALL pinch cinnamon - mix by hand until smooth
combine the two and add a scant cup of flour. add some chocolate chips if desired
bake at 350 for about 25 minutes (9/13 pan) - take out when still a bit moist and cover with a towel to cool and finish cooking out of the oven (all chocolate desserts “cook” a bit while cooling)
…you don’t taste the coconut or the cinnamon, but those flavors enhance chocolate like you wouldn’t believe - can also use black pepper.
@chinablue, Nick’s Supernatural Brownies are the absolute best I have ever tried. I used that recipe as my brownie recipe when I had to cater Senior Tea, an end of year event at my kids’ high school. Everyone raved about them. One woman made them so often after the event that she claimed they gave her diabetes! Hint: These are to be eaten as a treat, not as an everyday dessert!
@wis75, a few answers to your baking questions: using unsalted butter allows you to have more control over the amount of salt in the finished product. Salted butters vary in saltiness, so you never know how much salt you’ll have. Salt is necessary to bring out such flavors as vanilla and chocolate; it also aids in rising in certain recipes.
Kosher salt is less salty than regular table salt. This is why many professional cooks prefer it. But yes, it does dissolve, so if you don’t have any kosher salt, regular table salt is fine. If the recipe calls for kosher salt, you will want to add a little less of the table salt.
I totally agree with you about the coffee flavor ruining chocolate. If you want coffee flavor, call it a coffee dessert, but it doesn’t “bring out” the flavor of anything, IMO, it stomps all over it. And I love coffee! Ditto for coconut and cinnamon, which brings me back to…salt as a perfect flavor enhancer.
No takers for the Fanny Farmer recipe? It’s what I grew up with, and it’s still my favorite.
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Boston-Cooking-School-Brownies
"I totally agree with you about the coffee flavor ruining chocolate. If you want coffee flavor, call it a coffee dessert, but it doesn’t “bring out” the flavor of anything, IMO, it stomps all over it. And I love coffee! Ditto for coconut and cinnamon, which brings me back to…salt as a perfect flavor enhancer. "
Wow. I thought the “chance” threads were harsh; I had no idea (Stomps?) You can take it or leave it, but my brownies are chocoholic-approved!
So all the good comments about Ghirandelli brownie mix made me select that as little Valentine’s Day treat for daughter - haven’t made boxed brownie for long while
And. Weighing in on coffee - chocolate issue
I’ve made Texas chocolate sheet cake many times with coffee added
http://www.food.com/recipe/the-absolute-best-dark-chocolate-chocolate-chip-texas-sheet-cake-200484
Carry on …
Tiramisu is supposed to taste like coffee.
Some of the recipes I make - like a chocolate cake from scratch - use coffee as an ingredient. I bet you’d be hard pressed to know its even there. It adds a depth and does bring out the chocolatey-ness.
Hmmm…wish we could do a CC Bake-off!