How To Prevent The Edges Of Your Brownies From Becoming Hard

"Little treat" culture is here to stay, and if it's sweets you crave, nothing beats a pan of brownies. They're easy to assemble, they bake in less than an hour, and they don't require many ingredients, even if you bake them from scratch. The only drawback is when the edges become hard while the center stays soft. Some people would argue that the brownie edges are the most important part of the batch, so it's important to get them right. If you find your edges tend to get a little too crusty, wrap a piece of foil over the pan before it cools. The moisture that's still escaping as the batch cools will collect inside the pan and prevent the edges from drying out.

The best way to fix overbaked edges, however, is to understand why it happens in the first place. Hard edges all come down to oven temperature and the type of pan you're using. It's also easy to accidentally overcook them because you can't really tell if brownies are done just by looking at the pan, and since they're made with a sticky batter, the toothpick test isn't much better. Choose the right pan, make sure the oven temperature isn't too hot, and consider testing for doneness with a thermometer.

Probably the biggest mistake most home bakers make when baking brownies is using a glass baking pan. Just because your mom and grandmother used them doesn't mean they're the best choice. Glass holds onto heat longer than metal, so even after the brownies come out of the oven, the edges, which touch the pan, continue to cook. If the brownies are even a little overcooked in the oven, the edges will pay the biggest price. Instead of glass, go for a square metal cake pan, like those used for quickbreads and coffee cakes.

Oven temperature is also a big factor. Baking brownies at too high a temperature will overcook the edges before the center can catch up. Every recipe and boxed brownie mix has a temperature recommendation, but that doesn't mean a thing if the oven is wrong, and it's not unusual for home ovens to be 25 or even 50 degrees off. Fix this by investing a few dollars in a sturdy oven thermometer, and adjust your oven temperature accordingly. You can get a decent model, such as the Taylor analog oven thermometer, for less than $10.

And speaking of thermometers, start baking brownies to temperature rather than relying on visual cues to prevent overbaking. Quick-read meat thermometers are perfect for testing baked goods, and a batch of brownies should be done at 200 to 220 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on if you like your brownie texture cakey, fudgy, or chewy.