Give Brownies 10x Better Flavor By Adding This Common Spice

Sylvia Plath once wrote, "There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them." Well, this is how I feel about brownies. Whenever I'm having a bad day, feeling down, or am just stuck in a creative rut, I make a batch of brownies. Why? Well, they're easy to make and can yield tasty, fudgy, cakey, or chewy results depending on your recipe. Plus, they are really easy to customize. There are plenty of small additions that can help to bring out a little something special. My favorite brownie-enhancing hack? A pinch of cayenne pepper. Now, while you can absolutely add your cayenne pepper (or whatever dried pepper powder you please) directly into your brownies' dry ingredients before baking, there is a better, more flavorful way to go about this upgrade. 

I'm talking, of course, about blooming, or the process of heating up your spices in a bit of oil in order to draw out any fat-soluble flavors. It helps to really unlock the full, complex flavor profile of your spices, and can also help suffuse its flavors into your dish. In the case of brownies, simply add a little bit of butter or oil to a pan, turn the heat on the stove to low, and add cayenne pepper (which has fat-soluble capsaicin), and heat for 30 seconds to a little over a minute. Then, mix your bloomed spice into the other wet ingredients required for your recipe. We suggest starting with a small amount of cayenne, about ¼ teaspoon, so that the spice doesn't overwhelm the brownies' sweet, chocolatey flavor.

While powdered cayenne pepper doesn't have an incredibly strong flavor on its own, its biggest strength is in adding spice to enhance existing flavors, lending your brownies an added warmth and an unexpected bite. But why does the sweet and spicy combo work? For one, these two flavors have a delightful yin and yang quality about them. Sweetness is delicious, yes, but it's hardly challenging. Heat, on the other hand, brings a small amount of pain to the experience, which releases endorphins. So having both of these aspects go hand in hand gives complexity to ordinary sweetness and helps temper the pain of eating spicy food all while making it more pleasurable.

Let's be honest though, the combination of cayenne pepper and chocolate doesn't need much justification. After all, it's standard in Mexican hot chocolate, a drink that brings together the earthy, rich taste of chocolate with the spice of cayenne. But you don't have to stop with just adding cayenne to your brownies; if you want a bit more smokiness, you can add in some chipotle pepper powder. And don't be afraid to combine these additions with more traditionally dessert-forward warming spices, such as cinnamon and cardamom, as they can act as a lovely bridge between the spicy and sweet flavors.