Turn Boxed Brownies Into Bakery-Worthy Treats With One Fizzy Addition

For some, a good brownie is so fudgy in the middle it seems like it was barely baked. But for others, the best form a brownie can achieve is light and cakey. If you fall into the latter camp, we'd bet you never considered adding soda into your batter to help achieve that consistency. David Davidov, recipe developer and creator of The Cooking Foodie, spoke to us at Food Republic about how this hack makes cakier, bakery-worthy brownies possible.

"Soda like Dr. Pepper acts as both a leavening agent and a flavor enhancer in brownie mixes," he explained. The fizziness from the carbonation imbues air into the batter, he told us, meaning the finished product is less dense and heavy (although you should not expect a texture akin to a light and airy Chantilly cake).

To use soda for cakier brownies, you're going to actually replace all of the wet ingredients the box calls for — oil, eggs, etc. — with an entire can of pop. That's it. You'll just dump the liquid over the mix in a large bowl and then combine the two ingredients until there are no more lumps. The batter will fizz at first and be quite soupy, so don't be alarmed. These brownies will bake up moist, chewy, and slightly softer, according to Davidov.

Which soda flavors work best with boxed brownie mix?

David Davidov informed us that using a can of pop with your boxed brownie mix not only benefits the texture, but also can infuse the chocolatey sweets "with a hint of soda-shop nostalgia in every bite." He noted that Dr. Pepper is great because "the cherry and spice notes ... complement chocolate beautifully and can add a subtle complexity to the finished brownies." However, he also recommended trying that old drugstore favorite — root beer — as a quintessential match with chocolate (you could also take it a step further and serve up your warm-from-the-oven brownies with a scoop of your favorite store-bought vanilla ice cream on top).

More basic cola gives brownies caramel undertones, he continued, while "orange soda surprisingly works well in chocolate brownies, giving them a playful twist." For a bolder coupling, Davidov suggested using non-alcoholic ginger beer, as it "can add warmth and spice" to a batch of dark chocolate brownies. He also mentioned that you can technically use diet sodas (also called zero sugar sodas), but because of artificial sweeteners, the results may be less than reliable.

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