Olive Oil Brownies, How to Make Brownies From the Pantry

Olive Oil Brownies are the quickest way to get a hit of rich, thick chocolate when that craving hits you in a midnight emergency. Or just, like, you know, on a regular Tuesday. You only need as few as 7 ingredients, almost all of them out of the pantry! Shall we?

Jump to:

• What are Olive Oil Brownies?
• Ingredients You Need for Olive Oil Brownies
• How to Make Olive Oil Brownies
• Do the Brownies Taste Like Olive Oil?
• Tools and Equipment
• Leftovers and Storage
• Olive Oil Brownies Recipe

Quick story time: In this house, these Olive Oil Brownies are more commonly known as Panic Brownies, born out of one traumatic night when baking something—anything—was a desperate, symbolic attempt to regain the control that had slipped out of my hand, slammed into the stone floor face down, and shattered into 10,000 glass shards.

I had annhilated my phone.

While waiting for my tech guy to show up at the house to repair said annihilated phone, I baked brownies, but had to do it without a real recipe because, duh, my recipe source, my phone, was huddled a shattered heap on the floor. I had to bake brownies without a real recipe.

The ingredients ratios are just ever so slightly off from most brownie recipes because it is much easier to dump "1 cup of flour" and "1 cup of sugar" and "2 eggs" into a bowl than to try to remember "1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of flour," "⅔ of a cup granulated sugar plus ⅓ cup brown sugar," and the ever-annoying "1 egg plus 1 yolk."

There's no melting butter, or bringing eggs to room temperature—lol, really?! And there's no adding chocolate chips or chunks so there won't be that shiny crackly top on the brownies because if you had chocolate chips in a midnight chocolate emergency, you'd just eat them straight out of the bag, not bake brownies with them.

What are Olive Oil Brownies?

Olive Oil Brownies are brownies that are made with, wait for it, olive oil as the primary fat component as opposed to butter or another vegetable oil.

Because olive oil is a liquid, Olive Oil Brownies comes together in one bowl without having to wait to soften butter, or wear out your forearms to beat butter and sugar. This is why Olive Oil Brownies are my favorite to make. Dump. Stir. Bake.

Ingredients You Need for Olive Oil Brownies

Fresh/Refrigerator Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs

Dry/Pantry Ingredients:

• Cocoa powder, ½ cup
• Coffee, ½ cup brewed, or plain hot water
• Granulated sugar, 1 cup
• Sea salt, 1 teaspoon
• Olive oil, ½ cup
• Vanilla extract, 1 tablespoon
• All-purpose flour, 1 cup
• Flaky sea salt for sprinkling on top

If you like slightly "cakier" brownies, add ¼ teaspoon baking powder.

Nuts, ZERO cups. Never, I repeat never, add nuts of any kind to brownies, you infidel.

Ingredients Notes and Resources

1. Cocoa Powder. For this Olive Oil Brownies recipe, I use organic, unsweetened natural cocoa powder. Make sure it's cOcOA powder, not cAcAO powder. Cocoa powder is made from beans roasted at a higher temperature so it's a little more palatable. Cacao powder is made from beans roasted at a lower temperature, so it's more bitter. Cocoa powder usually costs less than cacao powder.
2. Coffee. Assuming you are truly making these brownies in an absolutely panic at midnight, you already have a pot of coffee going, which you can use. If you're trying not to stay awake until next Wednesday, use hot water.
3. Sugar. The recipe calls for granulated sugar, but if you have brown sugar, you can use any combination. The difference in flavor and texture will be too nuanced, especially with the intensity of the cocoa powder.
4. Salt. Adding salt to sweet dishes isn't meant to make them taste salty. Salt not only brings out the natural sweetness of other ingredients, it balances the sweetness, too. Either kosher salt or this ancient sea salt.
5. Olive Oil. I like this California-grown olive oil, but it's also VERY expensive, so I am saving that for times when I am eating straight olive oil like as a dip for bread, and using this mild, organic olive oil for the cake.
6. Vanilla Extract. Vanilla in the recipe brings out the "chocolate." I use this organic brand of pure vanilla extract. Don't use imitation vanilla flavoring.
7. Flour. You can use any form of wheat flour for Olive Oil Brownies. I used this brand of organic, unbleached, all-purpose flour. I have made this cake with half whole wheat flour and as expected, it works perfectly well.
8. Flaky Sea Salt.

How to Make Olive Oil Brownies

Technically, you could dump and stir all of the ingredients together into a mixing bowl, pour into a pan and bake, since brownies have a texture that don't require a specific order of ingredients or technique like a cake, but here are some tips to make the hardest part—the cleanup!—easier.

Do the Brownies Taste Like Olive Oil?

These brownies do not taste like olive oil, per se. Unless you use an olive oil that's intensely aromatic with either grassiness or pepperiness, the olive oil flavor in the final brownies will not stand out. The brownies will taste like chocolate, with an underlying brightness from the olive oil. Someone who doesn't know the exact ingredients that go into the brownies wouldn't be able to tell you it was olive oil, but there would be something unrecognizable they couldn't quite identify, similar to what umami does in savory dishes.

Dessert Recipes with Olive Oil

• Chocolate Olive Oil Cake has the same basic ingredients as the brownies, but a little more lift from baking powder.
• Lemon Olive Oil Cake is the lemon version of this cake, dairy-free and baked in an 8-inch round pan
• Orange Olive Oil Cake is an eye-catching "upside down" version that has sunny slices of orange baked into the bottom of an 8-inch round pan
• Rosemary Olive Oil Cake with Candied Rosemary recipe, dairy-free, baked in 8-inch round cake pan

Why Use Olive Oil vs Butter in Baking

Aside from the fact that the two ingredients have very different flavor profiles, olive oil and butter render final products with different textures. Olive oil brownies are denser and moister, and stay that way for much longer than brownies made with butter.

Generally speaking, olive oil is considered a healthier fat choice over butter because of its omega-3 content, making an olive oil cake a more appropriate choice for people with certain health and dietary needs. However, brownies, cakes and other baked goods, even with olive oil, may have other ingredients like sugar, wheat flour, eggs, and dairy, that affect the nutrient density of the final dish.

How to Get the Shiny Crackly Top on Brownies

If you want that ever-coveted shiny, paper-thin crackly top on brownies, you have to add chocolate chips to the recipe.

Based on HOURS of research, that coveted shiny crackly top that you see on some brownies and not on others comes from the addition of chocolate chips or chunks to the recipe, not from dissolving sugar in either butter or eggs. The ingredient in the chocolate chips or chunks that keeps it solid and gives it shape, usually listed as some form of lecithin, seems to be the key.

So, to get that shiny top, stir in ½ to 1 cup of chocolate chips into the brownie batter at the end. But if you were truly baking these brownies in a midnight panic, you wouldn't even bother baking brownies, you'd just eat the chips straight out of the bag, right?

Pro Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

• Whisk and Stir by Hand rather than an electric mixer, which will aerate the brownie batter too much and give it a fluffier, more cake-like texture rather than the sticky, chewy, texture we want in brownies.
• Tap the Batter in the Pan against the counter to pop out any air bubbles.
• Substitute Melted Chocolate for Cocoa Powder. If you don't have cocoa powder, but already have some other form of chocolate on hand like baking chocolate bars or chocolate chips, you can substitute an equivalent amount of it for the cocoa powder by melting it and stirring it into prune puree. However, the sugar and fat content of the recipe will change based on the sugar and fat content of the chocolate. 

Tools and Equipment

• Glass mixing bowls
• 8x8-inch square baking pan
• Parchment paper
• Silicone spatula
• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons

Leftovers and Storage

Room Temperature. Leftover Olive Oil Brownies will keep in an airtight container on the countertop for three days.

Refrigerator. Leftover Olive Oil Brownies will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for five days.

Freezer. Leftover Olive Oil Brownies can be stored for the longer term in the freezer. Cut brownies into individual portions and store in an airtight, freezer-safe container for up to 3 months. Thaw in refrigerator overnight, or pop into a toaster oven or air-fryer for a few minutes.

In moments of this kind of panic and desperation, just use whatever chocolate— baking bar, chips, chunks, hell truffles from the candy jar—you have. Then again, if you're that desperate, fuck the brownies and just shove the chocolate into your mouth as is.

What to Do with Cocoa Powder

• Chocolate Chia Pudding
• Brownie Baked Oatmeal
• Chocolate Olive Oil Cake
• Chocolate Spread "No-tella"

Food for Afterthoughts

A broken iPhone screen normally would not be a very big deal, but still a big deal because when is anything in The Delicious Life not a big deal? But it was a VERY big deal because it was the third time this year I have dropped my iPhone to the same outcome. (What is it they say about the psychology of doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result? Oh, right. Totally cliché.)

You would think that an inherently careless, clumsy bitch like me would, from the get-go, invest the $99 or whatever it is in AppleCare, or carriers' insurance, or for god's fucking sake, ninety-nine cents on a protective case. But I'm not only clumsy, I'm also fucking forgetful and even after a second time spending yet another $190 on a new screen making my twice-repaired phone now more costly than my brand new car, I still did not take precautions.

And.

It's not about the money, though it does hurt my deeply budget-minded, first-born to an immigrant family soul that I essentially would have spent the same amount paying full retail for a 24-karat solid gold iPhone45 that doesn't even exist for three more years that I have now spent for three repaired screens. It's more about why I can't seem to keep my shit together, at least as "shit" refers to physical objects. There is of course, an entire series'-worth of therapeutic blog posts that will come from that statement, but for now, let's just say that the 8x8-inch pan barely made it from the oven to the counter before I attacked the pan with only the clean utensil left in my kitchen and numbed my senses both literally and figuratively with silver serving spoonfuls of scorching hot Panic Brownies straight from the pan.

I forgot to offer a brownie to the Phone repair guy who came to my house and fixed my phone on the spot.

I also still haven't put a case on my now three-times repaired phone.