Lhj's Best Brownies with Stir-Ins

This Ladies’ Home Journal classic is two recipes in one. First you make a big jar of dry brownie mix that keeps for 6 months on the shelf, then you scoop out 2 cups whenever the craving hits and add wet ingredients for a fresh pan of brownies in 35 minutes.

The base brownie is dense, fudgy and chocolate-deep thanks to a high cocoa-to-flour ratio. Eight ounces of cocoa against just three cups of flour means the chocolate flavor stays bold instead of getting muffled by too much starch.

The real magic is the five mix-in variations: mint chips, toasted coconut and slivered almonds, raspberry chips with hazelnuts, plumped dried cherries, or a caramel-pecan layered version where caramel sauce gets sandwiched between two layers of batter.

Toast the nuts and coconut before mixing in. Five minutes in a dry skillet or a quick stint in the oven brings out the oils and intensifies the flavor in a way that untoasted nuts can’t match.

Line the pan with foil leaving overhang on two sides. That lets you lift the whole brownie slab out for clean cuts and no scrambling with a spatula in the pan.

Pro Tips

• Store the dry mix in an airtight glass jar in a cool dark spot. Heat and moisture will spoil it before the 6-month mark.
• Stir or whisk the mix before scooping. Cocoa sinks to the bottom of the container over time.
• For the cherry version, plump the dried cherries only briefly, 5 minutes max. Longer and they water down the batter.
• The brownies are done when a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs, not wet batter. Overbaking turns them dry and crumbly.

Variations

• Substitute white chocolate chips for mint chips in the mint version for a sweeter cookies-and-cream feel.
• Add a pinch of espresso powder to the dry mix permanently to deepen the chocolate flavor.
• Swap pecans for walnuts in the caramel-nut version for a more assertive nutty bite.