Skip All-Purpose Flour: Give Brownies A Delicious Upgrade With One Ingredient

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We love little hacks for improving boxed brownies, like spooning milk powder into your batter, but, for the ultimate in customizable sweets, one always has to bake from scratch. However, it can be hard to choose what preparation will set your brownies apart from what everybody else makes. To give them unprecedented flavor, we recommend putting aside your bog-standard recipe and reaching for rye flour.

We've put together an exhaustive list of flour types, of which rye is one, but maybe you've never used it and need the 411. Rye flour is milled from rye kernels, the same way that all-purpose flour comes from wheat. Like wheat, rye is a grain. As with wheat flour, there are different varieties of rye flour, depending on how much of the kernel (the endosperm, the germ, and the bran) makes it into the final product.

Light rye flour has no bran or germ. It's also the lightest rye flour in terms of color and will produce the most airy baked goods. A dark rye flour — or even pumpernickel flour, another form that uses rye — produces the most profound flavor and can make baked goods dense because it is lower in gluten than wheat. For the purpose of your brownies, you'll likely want medium rye flour, such as this organic variety by King Arthur. You'll get that nutty, rich rye flavor you love in breakfast-time rye bread without sacrificing so much texture when it comes to your brownies. You can generally swap medium rye flour for up to 25% of a recipe's wheat flour without dramatically affecting the texture.

Kids love sugary-sweet brownies, and that classic milk chocolate flavor admittedly takes us back to childhood. When you want a special brownie that seeks to impress, however, our opinion is that you should jazz things up! The point of rye flour in your brownie mix is to bring an earthy, sophisticated edge to your flavor profile. When it comes to baking brownies this way, we say that you should ride the wave and continue to incorporate ingredients that give your brownies more mature nuance. 

To that end, how about some espresso powder in your pan? Coffee is frequently added to chocolatey baked goods because it adds a certain richness and bitter tinge that complements the cocoa in the loveliest way you can imagine. When you want your brownies to have that little something extra, we think that java — especially strong, dark espresso — is the way to go.

Coffee isn't the only way you can concoct rye brownies that grown-ups or even youthful connoisseurs will appreciate. How about some dried cherries or cranberries, the tartness of which will add character to your brownies and a delectable chewiness? If texture is what you're after, Paul Hollywood of "The Great British Baking Show" opts for cocoa nibs atop his brownies. Naturally, you also want the best real vanilla extract that fits your budget, as the imitation stuff doesn't offer the same depth of flavor. Your rye brownies are well worth a splurge on a good bottle.