Red Velvet Brownies
I’ve been on a red velvet baking marathon.
I hate working with red food coloring. No matter what I do, I get it all over my hands and fingers and it takes forever to get it out. I’ve even tried gripping the bottle with paper towels but it still somehow gets on my hands. But since I’ve been in red velvet baking mode, I decided to do as much as possible at once. I know I’ll have red dye on my hands for a few days, but soon it will be over. Until the next time.
I’ve been experimenting with making red velvet desserts from scratch. I already made a red velvet mug cake. Next, I decided to tackle brownies.
I started with a blondie base and added some cocoa powder, vinegar and red food coloring. The vinegar mixed with the butter helps achieve the buttermilk flavor and draws out the red hue, so I didn’t have to use too much food coloring.
These were a little more chocolaty than I prefer for red velvet, but they are quite delicious. They have a perfect dense and chewy center. Next time I might try cutting down on the cocoa powder even more, but I honestly couldn’t stop eating these. I finished almost the entire batch by myself.
I topped the squares with a swirl of cream cheese frosting. I thought about making cream cheese red velvet brownies, but I really wanted to keep the dense and fudgy texture.
Red Velvet Brownies
Ingredients
brownies
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, don't use dutch processed
- 1 tsp distilled vinegar
- 1 1/2 - 2 tsp red food coloring
cream cheese frosting:
- 8 oz unsalted butter
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F and line or grease a 9 x 9 baking pan. Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add in remaining ingredients and mix until smooth batter forms.
- Batter will be quite thick and sticky. Scoop batter into baking pan and use spatula to spread and smooth out across the pan. Bake for approximately 28-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let brownies cool completely for several hours before cutting and serving, so that they have time to settle and become dense and chewy.
- To make the cream cheese frosting, combine all ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix on high speed until smooth and fluffy.
I have a batch in the oven right now and I’m super excited as gave the spoon a good lick and it tasted great!
I wanted to bake another batch but with a 12×9 pan (I think) — do you have any suggestions on how long I should bake it for and at what temp? I think I’ll use 1.5x this recipe which would yield more mix than 1.5x the size of the 9×9 pan but I’m fine with thicker brownies… well — whatever suggestions you have for a 12×9 pan would be great!
Thank you!!!
P.S. This was my first time using food coloring and I had clean fingers… up to the point that I swiped the rest of the mix off the spoon! So close.
I think that sounds about right for the conversion. Hope you love these as much as I do!
I made it today, really delicious, but not red.
I never made red velvet cake…
Maybe the problem is the quality food coloring
It could be the food coloring you are using, in which case you will need to use more until your dough is red. It should already be a dark red before you bake it. It could also be some other factors. Did you add the distilled vinegar? The vinegar reacts with the cocoa powder and brings out its red hue, which is why i didn’t use as much red food coloring. Also did you use regular unsweetened cocoa powder? If you use dutch processed, it won’t be as red unless you use more food coloring.
These look delicious! You know, for RV brownies, I might like them a bit more on the chocolaty side even though I don’t like my RVC too chocolaty. They really aren’t suppose to be chocolate cake anyway. I love the dollop of cream cheese frosting on top. Looks perfect to me.
I only like a little cocoa powder in my RV cake, but I agree that for the brownie it seems to make more sense to have more cocoa powder.
great! its the perfect amount of cocoa! and it also looks very cute!
thanks!
Can’t wait to try out this recipe, or rather, have TC do it! Ha ha! I like those cute heart sprinkles that you used!
haha, yes have TC do it! I hope you like them. A little more chocolatey than red velvet cake but I still really liked them.
i love red velvet anything. these look great!
There is definitely something so alluring and distinctive about red velvet.
Aw these are cute! I like the idea of red velvet brownies. These look like they have a good texture, too. The little frosting swirl with the hearts is so adorable!
I made sure not to use any baking soda because I didn’t want them to get cakey. I like the little swirls of frosting too. hehe
Where did you get the edible mini hearts? Very cute.
I got them at Surfas store. there is one in OC and one in LA. they also have an online store. they have basically everything you could need to adorn/decorate. If you are in SD, you can also try Do It With Icing.
I adore red velvet anything! These look scrumptious. I will have to try this recipe before Valentine’s Day!!
I hope you like the recipe!