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As a long-time air fryer acolyte, I hardly need a reason to try cooking something new in mine. I’ve used it for just about every purpose, from “frying,” crisping, roasting, toasting, revitalizing leftover pizza and baking. The latter is especially handy in warmer months, when the thought of adding an oven’s worth of heat to my kitchen is a nonstarter, no matter the baked-good craving or social necessity.
The Best Air Fryers, Tested by CNET
Until recently, though, I hadn’t made brownies in an air fryer, despite having sung its praises for other baked items like stuffing and cake. (PSA: you don’t need it to be Thanksgiving to justify making stuffing.) Now, I admit that cake isn’t entirely ideal in an air fryer, since you really have to keep it covered and fight the appliance’s internal airflow to get the best results, but I still maintain that it’s worth considering in a multitude of scenarios.
Brownies, on the other hand, are a different story. Now that I’ve tried them in an air fryer, I wonder if the inside of my oven will ever see brownies again. Here’s why.
The nature of brownies and air fryer compatibility
Consider the brownie, if you will. Brownies aren’t just a cake variant. Neither are they just a cookie in bar form, but somewhere in the liminal space between the two: a thing both dense and fudgy whose ingredients are mostly butter, sugar and chocolate in one form or another, with barely enough flour to hold it all together.
The best brownies have several key elements when made correctly: sturdy, almost-crispy edges, an interior that borders on undercooked, and a crackling top crust. (We will not be hearing alternative viewpoints at this time.) If you have ever baked a cake in an air fryer, you will know it tends to overcook the surface and sides before the center gets set. The workaround is the covering and wind-deterring, but you miss some visual cues while the bake is underway.
However, it’s the very nature of the brownie and its gentle crustiness that makes the air fryer especially suited to brownie cookery. Whereas the circulating hot air of the air fryer can be a challenge to overcome with other baked goods, it’s a bonus with brownies. Brownies don’t need to rise so much as just to transform. And even though it’s not why we call it a brownie, in my experience, the brownie can withstand a little browning.
Air fryer brownies best practices
You could basically follow a conventional brownie recipe or boxed mix instructions to a T, only swapping in the air fryer for the oven, and probably not suffer too much for it. But for ideal air fryer brownies, you’ll want to massage things just a little bit.
First, according to the logic of adapting any recipe for the air fryer, you’ll want to adjust the recommended temperature by 20 to 25 degrees, and plan for about 25 percent less baking time than is called for. (In an urgent matter such as brownies, this is another air fryer bonus.) If you’ve had to adjust the baking pan called for to fit it inside the air fryer, however, you might need to reconsider the baking time. If the pan is narrower, making the brownies deeper, you’re probably adding back at least 25% of the baking time. I was able to fit an 8-by-8-inch square pan inside my extra-large Cuisinart ClearView, as called for by the recipe. (Read: box.)
While I typically think preheating an air fryer isn’t necessary for a lot of things, hedge your bets here and blow some hot air around in there first for a couple of minutes to get a nice ambient warmth going.
Read more: Yes, I Make Cheeseburgers in the Air Fryer (and They’re Delicious)
Even though you’re baking, and therefore not shaking, your air fryer still has hotter and cooler zones, so plan to spin the pan around at least once during cooking. This is easier to do in a glass air fryer, where you can rely on visual cues. I initially made the mistake of not doing so, which resulted in slightly darker brownies on one side of the pan, but not critically so. Otherwise? Crispy edges — check. Fudgy center — check. Crackling crust — check, and in about 16 minutes instead of 22. Eating brownies six minutes sooner — check.
Mug brownies? Ditch the microwave
The success of the brownie experiment had me thinking… Single-serve, microwaved mug brownies tend to be a little more cake-like than brownie, due to the unique physics of microwave cooking. But this is another argument for air fryer brownies.
If you’re doing this, (and if I’ve done my job you’re considering doing this right now) make sure you’re using a heat-safe mug, or better yet, a ramekin, before you whip up a solo diner’s worth of brownie batter. It will take slightly more time than the microwave directions for mug cake; in my case, about 12 minutes, but at the end of your still-minimal effort, you will have a little brownie treat that is actually very much like a little brownie treat.
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