Red Velvet Brownies

Son of a Southern Chef

Do you love red velvet? It is not my first choice, but my kids wanted to make this recipe, and we DO love brownies. I found these a bit sweet, with not as much of a chocolate hit as I prefer, but I would love the opinion of a red velvet fan!

These are pretty easy; you could make them with one bowl, one pan, and a hand mixer if that's all you've got.

The full recipe is available here: https://www.sonofasouthernchef.com/food/red-velvet-bars

You can watch him make them himself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ5pLqr_v20

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:05]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:07]: with heather
[00:08]: on this episode we are going to be
[00:10]: making red velvet brownies
[00:12]: from uh lazarus lynch's son of a
[00:15]: southern chef cookbook i have it right
[00:17]: here so i can refer to it
[00:19]: now i'm not a huge fan of red velvet but
[00:22]: i do like brownies
[00:23]: um and he says that this was kind of a
[00:25]: mistake so he was going for a cake but
[00:28]: ended up with something that was more
[00:29]: like brownies so he decided just let him
[00:31]: be brownies
[00:32]: so we're going to do that my kids
[00:34]: actually picked out this recipe
[00:36]: so hopefully they will enjoy it i have
[00:39]: everything i need for the brownies
[00:42]: themselves here
[00:45]: and then after that's done and after it
[00:48]: cools we're going to frost them with the
[00:49]: cream cheese frosting so i have
[00:51]: everything
[00:52]: that i need for the frosting back here
[00:54]: because you want the butter
[00:55]: and the cream cheese to all be at room
[00:58]: temperature so i'm just going to leave
[00:59]: those out until we're ready
[01:01]: this butter that i'm going to use for
[01:03]: the brownies is also
[01:05]: a little little colder than room
[01:07]: temperature but not much
[01:09]: and the eggs are also supposed to be
[01:10]: room temperature they've been out for i
[01:12]: don't know an hour
[01:13]: to hour and a half probably
[01:16]: so that'll be fine
[01:19]: he says that you can use a stand mixer
[01:23]: or a hand mixer just whatever you have
[01:26]: is fine i'm sure you can do it by hand
[01:28]: it'll just be a lot more work
[01:30]: but so i'm not going to prep my pan just
[01:33]: yet just because
[01:35]: i won't be able to show you that right
[01:38]: now because i'm all set up for this
[01:40]: so we're going to go ahead and make the
[01:42]: batter first even though the first step
[01:44]: in the recipe is to prep your pan
[01:46]: also i do have the oven preheating
[01:49]: though 350 degrees
[01:53]: so we're supposed to sift
[01:56]: some stuff together into a bowl that i
[01:59]: completely forgot so let me go ahead
[02:01]: and get that you won't be able to see
[02:03]: this very well
[02:04]: but it'll be fine so we're going to put
[02:07]: um we've got
[02:08]: some flour here
[02:12]: just all-purpose flour
[02:16]: i'm just going to sift using this um
[02:21]: this uh well
[02:25]: strainer something like that sifter
[02:27]: strainer whatever
[02:29]: so i'm gonna get that going through and
[02:31]: now we're gonna put through our
[02:32]: cocoa powder um
[02:35]: it does not say to use dutch processed
[02:38]: cocoa powder
[02:39]: but apparently that's about all i have
[02:41]: right now so that's what i
[02:43]: am using
[02:46]: so we're sifting this together i'm gonna
[02:49]: have to go get
[02:50]: a spoon to push the rest of that through
[02:53]: there
[02:58]: so i need the spoon to just sort of
[02:60]: break up the clumps
[03:02]: and and get them pushed through
[03:05]: so that we don't have clumps and i'm
[03:07]: just gonna
[03:09]: put that spoon in there i just kind of
[03:11]: mix it up just because
[03:13]: um i don't know
[03:16]: because i want to
[03:20]: oh we also supposed to sift our salt i'm
[03:22]: not going to worry about that honestly
[03:24]: we'll put the salt in um by itself
[03:28]: later because that's what i want to do
[03:31]: anyway it won't make a big difference
[03:33]: and so now we've got
[03:34]: um now we're ready for our mixer i've
[03:38]: got
[03:39]: some butter this is unsalted butter like
[03:41]: i said
[03:42]: at at or around room temperature
[03:48]: um
[03:52]: i read something or saw a video recently
[03:54]: from a baker who says that it doesn't
[03:56]: actually have to be at room temperature
[03:57]: it'll just take a little bit longer to
[03:58]: cream
[03:60]: probably said that already in one of one
[04:02]: of these videos
[04:06]: but it's still easy enough but if you
[04:09]: forget
[04:09]: it's fine so we're going to
[04:12]: put our butter uh oh and our sugar this
[04:17]: is an
[04:17]: awful lot of sugar like it barely fit
[04:20]: into my
[04:21]: bowl here but i'm gonna put all
[04:25]: oh yeah all of that in there try not to
[04:27]: spill it
[04:29]: and um we're going to beat this at
[04:33]: medium
[04:34]: speed until light and fluffy he says
[04:36]: about three minutes
[04:38]: we'll see while that's going i'm gonna
[04:40]: go get a spatula so i can scrape it down
[04:43]: and
[04:43]: mix some stuff in later because we have
[04:45]: to do that
[04:46]: by hand as well so
[04:51]: now this is still looking very sugary
[04:55]: um i don't know with the butter to sugar
[04:60]: ratio we have that we're gonna get any
[05:01]: more creamy
[05:03]: than this i mean it's pretty
[05:06]: fluffy i guess which is you know one of
[05:08]: the things that he
[05:09]: tells you to look for but i'm gonna let
[05:11]: it go in just another minute or so
[05:13]: and then uh we'll continue with the
[05:15]: recipe because
[05:16]: i think this is about the best we're
[05:17]: gonna get
[05:19]: it doesn't seem to be changing at all so
[05:21]: i'm gonna go with it as
[05:22]: is um and the next thing we do is add
[05:25]: our eggs
[05:27]: um
[05:31]: one at a time that's what i thought
[05:32]: that's what i said i just want to verify
[05:34]: so one at a time we're going to add our
[05:35]: eggs
[05:36]: and get those mixed in
[05:43]: all right now with the eggs providing a
[05:45]: little more more moisture
[05:47]: we're getting um more of a creamy vibe
[05:49]: here
[05:51]: so we're going to keep going with that
[05:59]: all right so this is what i was
[06:03]: looking kind of the texture i was
[06:05]: thinking i would see with just the
[06:07]: butter and the sugar but that's okay
[06:09]: this is what we got now two more eggs
[06:21]: all right last one
[06:30]: now i'm going to scrape this down one
[06:33]: more time before
[06:35]: i call this good for the eggs
[06:38]: and before i feed it in again i am going
[06:42]: to add my salt since i did not add that
[06:44]: to my
[06:46]: dry ingredients i'm just going to go
[06:47]: ahead and add my salt he calls for
[06:49]: a fine sea salt
[06:54]: fine sea salt so i'm going to go ahead
[06:55]: and just this is what i happen to have
[06:59]: add that it's kind of a gray
[07:03]: salt it's not super white
[07:07]: um i'm gonna just give this a bit of a
[07:10]: mix
[07:10]: okay so now
[07:14]: unusually we're going to take this
[07:17]: off of the mixer
[07:21]: and fold in the um
[07:25]: the flour and the other dry ingredients
[07:28]: that we
[07:30]: sifted together but since we're going to
[07:32]: be putting this back
[07:34]: on the mixer i'm not going to worry
[07:36]: about taking the beater off just yet
[07:38]: i'm just going to leave that there
[07:40]: [Music]
[07:42]: and it says to fold the flour mixture
[07:45]: into the butter mixture with a spatula
[07:47]: so i'm just going to
[07:48]: pour all of this in here
[07:58]: we go and now i'm gonna fold it
[08:02]: um i'm gonna put this since i
[08:05]: am right-handed i'm gonna put this on
[08:08]: this
[08:08]: hand and just
[08:12]: fold this is that into the the butter
[08:14]: and eggs
[08:15]: as well as i can
[08:19]: this is seems very dry now
[08:22]: brownie batters usually are pretty dry
[08:24]: so
[08:25]: and hard to mix because
[08:29]: that's just how you get the brownie
[08:30]: texture i think but
[08:32]: um that makes it a little more difficult
[08:35]: here
[08:37]: we're gonna call that good for the
[08:38]: folding and then
[08:42]: then we put this back
[08:45]: in here and beat it on medium speed
[08:48]: until
[08:48]: smooth
[08:52]: so that's what i'm going to do now
[08:55]: starting slow
[08:57]: all right i mean that's
[08:60]: pretty smooth and it is you know thick
[09:03]: like i would expect a brownie batter to
[09:05]: be
[09:07]: we still have a little bit more liquid
[09:10]: ingredients to add to this though
[09:12]: so let's see
[09:15]: um we have some vanilla
[09:22]: um and also this is an interesting
[09:26]: ingredient that i wasn't expecting i
[09:27]: don't know if it's because
[09:29]: of red velvet or what but we're adding a
[09:32]: little bit of white vinegar um
[09:34]: i just have a really huge jar a
[09:37]: bottle of it so i put some into a small
[09:41]: container so that i would not dump way
[09:44]: too much into my dough there we go
[09:49]: and then some vanilla
[09:54]: i don't care if i dump a little bit too
[09:56]: much of this in there it'll be fine
[10:00]: and then the red
[10:05]: so this calls for basically this entire
[10:08]: bottle of red food coloring and i
[10:10]: already took the
[10:11]: it was brand new bottle already took the
[10:13]: um
[10:16]: uh protective seal off of it which you
[10:18]: can see is why i've got
[10:19]: red all over my hands and we're just
[10:21]: going to dump
[10:23]: all of this in here
[10:39]: probably just taking the lid off but
[10:42]: that wasn't too bad
[10:44]: all right and now we're going to um
[10:47]: mix it until well combined now it's
[10:50]: interesting he says mix it until well
[10:51]: combined and then use a rubber spatula
[10:53]: to mix the coloring throughout so i
[10:54]: don't know if it's not gonna
[10:56]: mix super well but now i'm gonna i'm
[10:59]: gonna use my spatula
[11:00]: and scrape down the sides because i've
[11:02]: got a bunch of this red food coloring
[11:04]: just
[11:05]: hanging out on the side
[11:09]: my hands are gonna be pink later
[11:20]: there we go all right give it another
[11:22]: little bit of a mix and then i'll
[11:24]: check with the spatula to make sure it's
[11:26]: all fully incorporated
[11:29]: okay we're gonna call that good and now
[11:32]: i'm gonna
[11:33]: try to clean off this paddle as best as
[11:36]: i can
[11:38]: so now i'm gonna take this off and i'm
[11:40]: going to move
[11:41]: my mixer out of the way and we're just
[11:44]: going to make sure that i've gotten
[11:45]: all of that food coloring mixed in well
[11:48]: but there's nothing hanging out on the
[11:49]: bottom that's not
[11:52]: just you can see a little a few brown
[11:55]: streaks this is a lot of brownies
[12:00]: that's the batter done i'm gonna clean
[12:02]: up a little bit
[12:04]: and uh we'll be back to show you how to
[12:07]: put the pan
[12:08]: how to prepare the pan and then we'll
[12:10]: get them in the oven
[12:12]: so i've got a 9x13 uh glass
[12:16]: pan it does not say it's just 9 by 13
[12:18]: baking pan
[12:20]: and i've got my parchment sheet which i
[12:23]: buy
[12:24]: you know as a specific sheet and what
[12:26]: i'm going to do what i do
[12:27]: you can put a little bit of butter
[12:31]: especially in the corners on the sides
[12:34]: to kind of help the
[12:37]: but kind of help the parchment stick
[12:43]: but it's not super important i don't
[12:45]: usually do this but
[12:47]: he does say to spray it with cooking
[12:50]: spray
[12:51]: as we all know i don't keep that
[12:56]: so what i do is i lay it down and then i
[12:59]: try to press in
[13:01]: and get the four corners in
[13:05]: and then using some kitchen scissors
[13:08]: i just cut down
[13:12]: the corner in whatever way
[13:15]: that it has decided
[13:20]: to fold itself because really it does
[13:23]: not matter it works
[13:24]: just about however
[13:28]: it wants to um even sort of on this
[13:32]: corner right here like this
[13:33]: where it's there we go
[13:38]: and then right here
[13:44]: there we go and we have a parchment
[13:47]: lined baking
[13:49]: dish and now i'm going to
[13:51]: [Music]
[13:53]: put this in the pan make it
[13:56]: pretty flat and we're going to uh
[14:00]: bake it for about 45 minutes until a
[14:03]: toothpick comes out
[14:05]: almost clean if it gets if it's clean um
[14:08]: a toothpick in the center is completely
[14:10]: clean
[14:11]: your brownies are overdone in my opinion
[14:14]: your brownies are overdone
[14:16]: of course you make your brownies how you
[14:19]: like them
[14:21]: i prefer mine on the underdone side not
[14:24]: the overdone side
[14:30]: brownie batter being thick is a little
[14:32]: more difficult to get
[14:35]: even than a cake batter but
[14:39]: it should be fine
[14:42]: as the butter you know melts in the oven
[14:44]: it'll it will even out a little bit
[14:46]: but not as much as a cake would
[14:52]: so all right
[14:56]: i'm gonna get as much of this off as i
[14:58]: can put this in the oven
[15:00]: for 45 minutes and
[15:03]: clean up my bowl because i want to use
[15:06]: that
[15:08]: for my um for my
[15:12]: frosting as well so all right
[15:16]: we'll uh let you know how it looks in
[15:18]: about 45 minutes but it also then needs
[15:20]: to cool completely
[15:22]: before we frost it so that'll take at
[15:25]: least another
[15:26]: like 40 minutes an hour or so after that
[15:29]: but
[15:30]: and you can hurry that by putting it in
[15:32]: the refrigerator freezer if you have
[15:34]: room but we'll just let it cool on the
[15:35]: counter top
[15:36]: so uh i'll be back when it's time to
[15:39]: make our frosting at 45 minutes we're
[15:42]: checking
[15:43]: [Music]
[15:45]: i think that is it's not
[15:48]: crumbs it's still pretty wet
[15:55]: you see check the other side check
[15:59]: usually i check sort of a couple inches
[16:02]: in
[16:03]: yeah it's still pretty wet we're gonna
[16:05]: let it go for maybe
[16:06]: five more minutes our brownies have been
[16:08]: out of the oven for
[16:11]: a few hours at this point probably like
[16:13]: three hours so they're plenty cool
[16:16]: i just left them on the counter they're
[16:17]: fine um
[16:19]: and but you just want them to be
[16:21]: entirely room temperature before you ice
[16:23]: them
[16:25]: frost them whatever um
[16:28]: but so now we're going to make our
[16:30]: frosting and it is to go with the red
[16:32]: velvet
[16:33]: a cream cheese based frosting and
[16:36]: these um i had to check myself i had the
[16:40]: wrong amount of butter and
[16:42]: cream cheese out but these have all been
[16:44]: out for a while
[16:45]: to be at room temperature so i've got a
[16:47]: little bit of unsalted butter
[16:50]: but it is mostly cream cheese and i've
[16:53]: got my
[16:54]: whisk attachment as you can see
[16:57]: on my stand mixer
[17:01]: and i'm just going to put all of this
[17:03]: the cream cheese and
[17:04]: the butter in here
[17:08]: and it's very
[17:12]: very soft
[17:25]: there we go just trying to get it all in
[17:31]: there
[18:15]: all right i'm gonna throw these away and
[18:17]: wash my hands a bit just because they're
[18:19]: messy
[18:21]: so i've got just the butter and the
[18:22]: cream cheese i'm going to whisk these
[18:25]: um just whip until they're smooth
[18:29]: scraping down the sides as needed um
[18:32]: just until they're really smooth and
[18:34]: mixed together
[18:38]: starting to come together and i'm going
[18:39]: to wipe down the sides once
[18:49]: [Music]
[18:53]: wipe down the sides one more time
[18:57]: just to make sure we get everything
[19:01]: incorporated and get everything out of
[19:04]: there
[19:05]: just the bulk of it
[19:09]: there we go
[19:14]: lost a little bit
[19:17]: we're gonna call that done didn't take
[19:19]: long and now we're going to add
[19:21]: basically the rest of the ingredients
[19:24]: it's not that difficult
[19:27]: just a pinch i'm just going to
[19:30]: grab a little bit with my spoon of more
[19:33]: of the same sea salt i used in the
[19:35]: brownies
[19:37]: and then some more vanilla
[19:46]: [Music]
[19:49]: and some confectioners sugar now i'm
[19:51]: gonna put this in
[19:53]: like half and half i think
[19:56]: um just to uh
[20:00]: just so it doesn't go poof all over the
[20:05]: place
[20:07]: and i'm going to start it slow and get
[20:10]: it all over the place
[20:15]: there we go some more sugar
[20:28]: [Music]
[20:34]: must have been some water in my
[20:37]: measuring cup
[20:40]: all right i need to scrape it down again
[20:54]: probably getting it everywhere honestly
[21:01]: okay i think we're pretty much there he
[21:03]: says just
[21:04]: whip it until it is light and fluffy and
[21:07]: i think we're pretty
[21:08]: pretty light it's pretty easy to
[21:11]: to spread right now i'm gonna take a
[21:14]: little taste
[21:17]: it's good what i like about a cream
[21:20]: cheese icing is that it's not
[21:21]: too sweet the cream cheese sort of gives
[21:25]: it a little bit more of the tartness
[21:27]: and offsets the plain sugar
[21:30]: flavor all right we're gonna call that
[21:33]: done
[21:33]: i'm gonna clean up a little bit and then
[21:35]: we're gonna frost our
[21:37]: grains so the really good thing about
[21:40]: parchment paper with with brownies is
[21:42]: that you can use
[21:43]: the parchment paper to take it the whole
[21:46]: block of it
[21:47]: out of your pan and then your pan is
[21:50]: not very dirty and of course they're not
[21:53]: going to stick to the parchment paper so
[21:55]: you can see you can just
[21:60]: pull it off and then you can slice these
[22:02]: and put them on a plate
[22:03]: whatever so
[22:07]: he says to to frost them like this and
[22:09]: then slice them
[22:10]: so i'm gonna get an offset spatula i
[22:13]: only have one of these
[22:14]: but it's very helpful for frosting
[22:18]: but so i'm just going to
[22:21]: plop some frosting on here um so i
[22:25]: took a little video the first time i
[22:27]: tested the brownies
[22:29]: and um i didn't think they were done i
[22:32]: cooked it another 10 minutes so i cooked
[22:34]: it for a total of 55 minutes
[22:37]: testing it every five
[22:40]: and they weren't a whole lot different
[22:43]: at
[22:44]: 55 minutes but i decided to go ahead and
[22:46]: pull them out anyway
[22:47]: so this is not what his
[22:51]: brownies look like he did a very cute
[22:55]: um domino effect on his
[22:58]: cut them up and piped some of the
[23:00]: frosting
[23:02]: on and made them look like pretty
[23:03]: dominoes
[23:05]: but this is what the instructions say to
[23:08]: do
[23:10]: so that's what we're doing
[23:13]: and i'm
[23:17]: i do not have the time
[23:21]: or the patience to frost
[23:25]: these in a really pretty manner
[23:28]: today maybe another time
[23:35]: just trying to make sure we get a decent
[23:37]: layer here
[23:38]: now this frosting will stick to my knife
[23:43]: but i'm going to go ahead and cut
[23:47]: into them and see uh
[23:50]: so you can see what they look like on
[23:52]: camera and how they cut
[23:55]: i usually like to use my long um
[23:58]: i think this is a carving knife for this
[24:00]: and i'm just gonna cut them i'm not
[24:01]: gonna cut them
[24:02]: too big
[24:05]: he says it takes it serves 12 to 24 so
[24:12]: and that getting some crumblies
[24:15]: off the um the top
[24:18]: is fully
[24:21]: expected and you should um
[24:26]: dust the top with the extra crumbs
[24:33]: to make it a little prettier there we go
[24:36]: so let's see what this edge looks like
[24:38]: they look very
[24:40]: fudgy but pretty well done
[24:43]: to me so that's it uh i'll probably put
[24:47]: the rest of this frosting because i
[24:49]: don't think we needed all of it
[24:50]: into um the refrigerator
[24:54]: uh and it'll last a while like that
[24:56]: because it's really just sugar
[24:57]: and the dairy that will last a while
[24:58]: like cream cheese and butter you know
[25:00]: last
[25:01]: pretty much forever um well not forever
[25:04]: but anyway um so that'll last in the
[25:07]: refrigerator for a while and maybe i'll
[25:09]: make some cupcakes or something and
[25:10]: we'll see
[25:11]: how we can use that up but there we go
[25:15]: we have our red velvet brownies
[25:19]: thanks for watching
[25:27]: on this episode of cooking the books
[25:28]: with heather you watched me make
[25:30]: red velvet brownies from lazarus lynch's
[25:33]: son of a southern chef cookbook and i
[25:36]: have
[25:38]: i have a couple problems with this
[25:39]: recipe for me
[25:41]: um number one mine do not look nearly as
[25:44]: beautifully red
[25:45]: as the ones in this
[25:49]: in the pictures in the book um
[25:53]: it doesn't really matter it's just
[25:54]: they're really very red
[25:56]: in the pictures and mine were a more
[25:59]: muted red
[26:01]: which is fine um even though i did
[26:03]: follow the recipe
[26:04]: exactly it might depend on the type of
[26:07]: food coloring you use
[26:10]: i just used you know what i found in the
[26:12]: regular grocery store um
[26:14]: liquid food coloring um
[26:17]: and for me they there wasn't a lot
[26:20]: of chocolate flavor i thought i felt
[26:22]: like they were just they were very
[26:24]: sweet and not very rich and chocolatey
[26:28]: which is what i prefer in a brownie
[26:31]: the cream cheese frosting was really
[26:33]: good and was a was a great addition to
[26:35]: it i thought
[26:37]: but again sort of actually it didn't
[26:39]: really add to the sweet because the
[26:40]: cream cheese
[26:41]: frosting is not super sweet
[26:43]: comparatively to other frostings
[26:45]: because it has a little bit of the tang
[26:47]: from the cream cheese um
[26:50]: but my kids don't really like frosting
[26:52]: so i don't know why they
[26:54]: requested that i'd make a brownie recipe
[26:55]: that had frosting
[26:57]: but that's okay um but it made quite a
[27:00]: lot
[27:00]: of of the frosting i think it was more
[27:04]: than we needed
[27:05]: for the recipe of course you could put
[27:08]: more on it if you prefer
[27:10]: so i don't think i'll be making these
[27:12]: again
[27:13]: if you like red velvet and you like
[27:15]: brownies i'm sure they're
[27:17]: delicious for that but not my favorite
[27:20]: kind of brownie so
[27:22]: let me know in the comments what's your
[27:24]: favorite kind of brownie i like
[27:25]: something very very chocolatey
[27:28]: um fudgy i don't like edges
[27:31]: i think that is probably pretty
[27:34]: controversial whether you're an
[27:35]: edge or a center brownie person let me
[27:38]: know that
[27:39]: in the comments tell me i'm wrong i'm
[27:41]: used to it
[27:43]: anyway uh yeah but they were relatively
[27:46]: easy
[27:47]: he uses a stand mixer in this one but
[27:50]: i'm sure again a uh a hand mixer would
[27:53]: be fine which he used in some of his
[27:55]: other recipes
[27:56]: and um yeah they're not
[27:59]: they're not hard but i didn't i just
[28:02]: didn't
[28:03]: think that it's the the brownie recipe
[28:05]: that i'll use again
[28:07]: you might decide differently
[28:11]: if you enjoyed watching me make this
[28:13]: please give me a thumbs up
[28:14]: hit the subscribe button and come back
[28:16]: and watch me make something else next
[28:20]: week