Yes, You Can Make Brownies In The Air Fryer

A decade ago, the idea of an air fryer would have been alien to most people. Since then, the device has seen a meteoric rise and can be found in many people's kitchens. While early explanations for air fryers and their practicality focused on the health of making fries without all that oil, it has since become clear they are so much more than that. Not everything an air fryer makes has to be healthy, and at the end of the day, an air fryer is really just a very small and convenient convection oven. With so many unexpected foods you can throw in an air fryer, it's not strange to start questioning where the limits of this device are and pondering whether you can make air fryer brownies.

Can you make brownies in an air fryer? Yes. Should you? There are certainly some big benefits to it, and as it turns out, there aren't that many drawbacks. You need to adjust your recipe a bit for quantity, cook temperatures, and cook times. You also need to think about what pan you can fit inside the air fryer. But at the end of the day, this is a great air fryer hack for when you want a little treat that's fresh and comforting without going overboard.

As noted, your air fryer is, in essence, a small convection oven — the keyword there being "small." If you make a full batch of brownie batter, you're not going to be able to bake it all in the air fryer at the same time. Your exact air fryer model and brownie batter recipe are going to define how you scale your mix. But a good rule of thumb for most air fryers is to make one-third of the normal amount of batter for your brownies. This might cause an issue depending on how many eggs go into your brownie batter, as messing with half eggs is just frustrating at best. Fortunately, you can make a flax egg substitute in any amount you like.

Of course, you don't want to pour your brownie batter straight into the air fryer basket. That is going to make a mess you don't want to clean. If your air fryer has a round basket, a 6-inch round cake pan should fit perfectly. If you have an air fryer with awkward dimensions or rectangular drawers, look at loaf pans. Whatever you use, don't forget to grease it!

Finally, to convert to an air fryer instead of a standard oven, reduce the cook temperature by 25 degrees Fahrenheit and the cook time by 20 to 25%. There might be some trial and error to convert your favorite brownie recipe, but you can also find recipes specifically developed for air fryers.

You need the right baking tin. You need to scale your recipe. You need to trial-and-error the recipe to get the balance just right for your particular recipe and air fryer combination. Is all of this worth it to make air fryer brownies? Your needs might vary, but there are two big benefits to making brownies in the air fryer.

First, you don't have to heat up your whole oven. Doing that takes a lot more energy, which makes it marginally worse for both your power bill and the environment. Additionally, if your house is already warm, the oven has a tendency to heat the kitchen up, which might be unpleasant for you.

Additionally, the air fryer is a great way to make just a small batch of brownies for when you want a treat and don't necessarily want a whole tray of brownies laying around the house to be gorged upon. A fun bonus of this is that brownie batter keeps quite well in the fridge overnight so long as it's sealed up properly, such as in a resealable plastic bag or airtight container. That means you can make a batch of batter, cook up a small amount in the air fryer, and seal the rest away. Then with almost no work, you can have fresh warm brownies again a second day by using the rest of the batter up.