As a long-time air fryer acolyte, I hardly need a reason to try cooking something new in mine. I’ve used it for just about every purpose, from “frying,” crisping, roasting, toasting, revitalizing leftover pizza and baking. The latter is especially handy in warmer months, when the thought of adding an oven’s worth of heat to my kitchen is a nonstarter, no matter the baked-good craving or social necessity.
Until recently, though, I hadn’t made brownies in an air fryer, despite having sung its praises for other baked items like stuffing and cake. (PSA: you don’t need it to be Thanksgiving to justify making stuffing.) Now, I admit that cake isn’t entirely ideal in an air fryer, since you really have to keep it covered and fight the appliance’s internal airflow to get the best results, but I still maintain that it’s worth considering in a multitude of scenarios.
Consider the brownie, if you will. Brownies aren’t just a cake variant. Neither are they just a cookie in bar form, but somewhere in the liminal space between the two: a thing both dense and fudgy whose ingredients are mostly butter, sugar and chocolate in one form or another, with barely enough flour to hold it all together.
The best brownies have several key elements when made correctly: sturdy, almost-crispy edges, an interior that borders on undercooked, and a crackling top crust. (We will not be hearing alternative viewpoints at this time.) If you have ever baked a cake in an air fryer, you will know it tends to overcook the surface and sides before the center gets set. The workaround is the covering and wind-deterring, but you miss some visual cues while the bake is underway.
