This Is Alton Brown's Simple Trick To Perfect Brownies

Celebrity chef Alton Brown's cooking and baking hacks have become the stuff of kitchen legend. Would you have ever thought of recycling an egg carton by roasting your meatballs in it (the carton absorbs the fat)? Or, how about using an egg carton as a gadget to store condiment bottles upside down in the fridge, to make them easier to use come barbecue time? Then there is the flour substitution that can make your chocolate chip cookies chewy and delicious — use bread flour instead of all purpose flour. Genius! We love this hack: spraying water onto baking sheets, so you don't play slip n' slide with your parchment paper (via Buzzfeed). Brown also recommends adding mayo to scrambled eggs for a creamy delight at breakfast time.

And then there's the latest hack Alton Brown uses to ensure his brownies are perfect every time. This is not something you have tried before; trust us!

Alton Brown's recipe for brownies (which he calls Cocoa Brownies 2.0) calls for the usual ingredients: large eggs, two types of sugar, natural cocoa powder, salt, and vanilla. Combine wet and dry ingredients, pour the batter into a pan. Then we get to the hack: after the brownies have been in the oven for 15 minutes, take them out and have them sit on your kitchen counter for 15 minutes, before popping them back into the oven for an additional 30 minutes, or when the center of the brownie reaches a temperature of 195 degrees. Cool the brownie in the pan for 30 minutes before cutting. 

While taking brownies out of the oven can legitimately be seen as an extra step in what is normally a fuss-free, pop-them-in-the-oven-and-forget-until-done dessert, Brown promises the 15-minute pause results in brownies with what he called "ooier centers" on social media, because time spent outside of oven helps the brownie's middle to cool and set, before they are baked to a temperature that makes them safe to eat (via The Kitchn).

As he says on his website, the brownies are "proof positive that technique is just as important as ingredients."