Brown Butter Miso Gluten-Free Brownies
The miso reads as depth rather than as miso: a nutty, faintly savory note that some people register as peanut butter when the batter is warm.
- Yield
- 24
- Active
- 35 min
- Total
- 4 hr
- Oven
- 350°F / 177°C
The miso reads as depth rather than as miso: a nutty, faintly savory note that some people register as peanut butter when the batter is warm. It settles back as the brownies cool. 22g is right at this scale. To leave it out, bump the fine salt to 8g.
Espresso powder must be instant. Ground coffee at any grind setting stays as grit in the crumb. 8g is the middle of the useful range; past 10g it starts tasting like coffee rather than deepening the chocolate.
If the sugar stays gritty past the 10-minute rest, set the bowl over barely simmering water and stir until warm to the touch, around 120F, then let it come back down before adding the miso and eggs. Sugar dissolves as a function of temperature. Fine grit at this stage is cosmetic: it costs you the crackly top but not the texture.
Chips carry stabilizers and hold their shape, giving distinct sweet rounds. Chop a bar instead if you want melted seams, or pulse the chips a few times with a knife to split the difference.
Light-colored metal is best. Dark metal darkens the edges faster. For glass, drop to 325F, add 5 to 8 minutes and pull earlier than looks right, since glass keeps cooking after it leaves the oven.
For an 8x8 pan, scale everything to two-thirds and bake 30 to 34 minutes.
Sourcing: Guittard baking bars and chips carry a free-from-peanuts-tree-nuts-and-gluten panel, which is a stronger assurance than reading an ingredient list. One 170g box each of the 64% and the 100% covers a full batch with room to spare. Flour is Bob's Red Mill GF 1-to-1, blue bag. Miso is Hikari Mellow White.
Ingredients
Method
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Heat the oven with a rack in the middle position. Line a 9x13 metal pan with parchment, leaving overhang on two sides. Chop both chocolates into a large mixing bowl.
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Brown the butter in a light-colored saucepan over medium heat, swirling constantly through the foaming stage until the solids turn deep amber and it smells nutty. Scrape everything, specks included, onto the chopped chocolate.
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Let the hot butter sit on the chocolate without stirring, then stir until completely smooth. Whisk in the espresso powder until no granules remain.
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Whisk in both sugars and rest. Brown butter carries less water than melted butter, so the sugar needs the time to go into solution. This is what produces the shiny crackly top.
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Whisk in the miso until fully dissolved. It has to go in before the eggs or it will never integrate.
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Add the whole eggs one at a time, then the extra yolk and vanilla. Whisk hard. The mixture should turn uniform in color, lose its surface fat slick, and coat the whisk in a thick ribbon.
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Sift the flour, cocoa and fine salt over the batter. Fold with a spatula just until the streaks vanish, then fold in the milk chocolate chips.
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Cover and rest the batter at room temperature. The rice flour in the GF blend needs this. Do not skip it.
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Scrape into the pan, smooth the top and rap the pan on the counter to level it. Bake until the edges are set and the center still wobbles slightly. A skewer should come out with wet crumbs, not clean.
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Sprinkle the flaky salt from high up the moment the pan comes out of the oven.
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Cool in the pan on a rack until the underside of the pan is no longer warm. Leave uncovered overnight or cover the cooled pan with foil. Counter, never the fridge.
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Cut a few hours before serving. Lift the slab out by the parchment onto a board, use a long thin knife, press straight down rather than sawing, and wipe the blade between cuts. Four cuts the long way and five the short.
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