Nutella Brownies... Three Ways, 'Cause That's How I Roll

A couple of weeks ago, I'd bought this giant thing of hazelnut cocoa spread at Randall's because it was on clearance.

Last night, I had this idea that I'd make brownies out of it, so I "googled" "Nutella Brownies." I found a few recipes, including a regular brownie-type recipe that included Nutella at the end, and then another recipe that said, "Easiest 3-ingredient Nutella Brownie." I anticipate it including brownie mix, but it didn't. Instead, it was Nutella, eggs, and flour. Beyond that, there was a TWO-ingredient brownie recipe, and it was just Nutella and eggs.

None of the recipes was exceptionally difficult, but I wondered whether the two- or three-ingredients versions were good enough to hold up to a genuine brownie. I'd read that Nutella (and, I'm assuming, knock-offs like this one) have as much sugar as cake frosting, so it stood to reason in my bean that we didn't need to add sugar to make the brownies tasty.

Solely in the interest of science, I decided to prepare all three recipes today. You can find the recipes here:

1) Full-out Nutella brownies

2) Two-ingredient Nutella brownies

3) Three-ingredient Nutella brownies

I did halve the recipes, and I made them all in loaf pans, so each brownie would have a side and a middle, for comparison's sake.

Here are the results:

1. Nutella Brownies

Multi-tasking with the multi-ingredient recipe. I've been binge-watching season five of "Drop Dead Diva" since I have a month-long Netflix free trial.

A pretty standard brownie recipe, and after it's mixed, we just add in the hazelnut cocoa spread.

Ready for the oven!

The first batch as it came out of the oven. Looks pretty delicious, doesn't it?

2. Two-Ingredient Nutella Brownies

Blurry photo of the two ingredients. When they were mixed up, they looked like this. Very runny!

It went from being really runny to super spongy.

3. Three-Ingredient Nutella Brownies

Just eggs, flour, and hazelnut cocoa spread.

It was super thick.

It came out pretty bready.

The multi-ingredient brownies were obviously more voluminous, as they had about the same amount of Nutella and then the other stuff on top of it.

This meant that the brownies on the left were undercooked, despite the fact that I cooked them as long as I was supposed to cook the full recipe. I think this has to do with my oven, because potatoes take years to cook. I wanted to compare cutaways, so I only used the edges, as those, at least, were all the way done.

Super gooey brownie deliciousness with the full-out recipe. It was definitely our favorite. Daphne agreed, not knowing which was which.

Daphne thought the two-ingredient brownies were super spongy, but they tasted good. This was my second favorite recipe, and in a bind, I'd certainly use it because it's very, very easy.

The three-ingredient brownies turned out super cakey. I don't like cakey brownies. These would probably be great with peanut butter on top, as the flour cut through some of the sugar and made these thick enough to stand up to spreading peanut butter on them.

Since the batch of "real" brownies was still raw inside, I used my delightful cake transfer metal to put it back into the pan and nuked it for five minutes. It ended up looking like this:

Still fudge-y. I will definitely make these brownies again. They are delicious.

The second-place contender. Dense and tasty and spongy.

Now that I think on it, these could be delicious with 4 ingredients, to include peanut butter chips. Or white chocolate chips. Since the brownies aren't too sweet, the white chip would be balanced out.