Fudge Brownies with White Chocolate and Pecans

a stack of three brownie pieces with nuts and white chocolate

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Fudge Brownies with White Chocolate and Pecans

Super dense and fudgy, these brownies are studded with white chocolate chunks and pecan nuts for the ultimate indulgence.

Prep Time15

Cook Time15

Total Time30

Course: Afternoon Tea, Dessert, Morning Tea

Cuisine: American, Western

Keyword: brownies, fudge brownies, fudge brownies with white chocolate and pecans

Servings:

Calories: 261kcal

Ingredients

9 oz white chocolate chips the best quality you can find; if you can't get decent chips buy a block and chop into chunks
2 oz unsalted butter chopped (cold is fine)
3 oz dark brown sugar
2 oz superfine sugar caster sugar
10 oz dark chocolate the best quality you can find, chopped into pea-sized pieces
2 eggs lightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract or paste
2 1/2 oz all purpose flour plain flour
4 oz pecan nuts roughly chopped (walnuts are also good)

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Before you do anything at all, pop the white chocolate into the freezer while you get everything else ready. It’ll help the pieces hold together during baking, instead of melting into the brownies and disappearing.
Preheat your oven to 340⁰F/170⁰C, combination steam setting. If your oven has variable steam settings, use 50-60% steam. If not, don't worry! Just set to combi steam at the correct temperature and the oven will figure out the humidity. Line a 20cm/8in square pan with baking paper and extend it up the sides for ease of removing the brownies later (I use a cake pan but a shallower tray would be ideal).
In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and sugars together. You want the sugar to mostly dissolve otherwise your brownies will be grainy. Remove the pan from heat and immediately drop all the dark chocolate in. Give it a stir and leave to sit for a minute or two while the residual heat melts the chocolate (beware: if you stir too much the mixture can split and it won’t ever really come back together, so just mix it a couple of times until it’s combined and smooth).
Once the chocolate has melted completely and the mixture is cool enough to touch, mix in the eggs and vanilla. Fold through the flour, then the pecans and cold white chocolate.
Spread the mixture into your pan and bake for 15-16 minutes, or until a skewer tests almost clean (a few crumbs on the skewer are ok). Cool to room temperature, then chill until completely cold before removing the whole slab from the tin and cutting into bars or squares.
These will keep in a sealed container in the fridge for about 5 days, if you can make them last that long.

Notes

Makes 20 bars (or one 20cm/8in square tray).
As mentioned above, the chocolate you use is key. I used Callebaut 54.5% dark in the batter and Callebaut white callets/buttons for the white chocolate add-ins. I buy both from a wholesaler in bulk quantities a couple of times a year - it’s pricey but worth every cent. And probably no more expensive than continually buying smaller quantities at the supermarket. If you cook with a lot of chocolate but, like me, have a tendency to quietly mow through a bag of decent buttons left open in the pantry, do yourself a favour and buy the whopping 5kg/11lb blocks if you can find them. It sounds crazy and maybe it is, but I find if I have to take a giant knife to it and cut it into pieces I’m far less likely to snack on handfuls of the stuff every time I pass the kitchen.
You may choose to enjoy your brownies at room temperature or even slightly warmed, but I oddly love them about 5 minutes after they come out of the fridge. Still cold, super fudgy, with the white chocolate bits almost snappy between your teeth.

Nutrition