Don’t Lick the Spoon (Make Brownie Toast Instead)

The best part of making brownies isn’t the brownies, it’s the clean up. That’s when all that gooey remnant batter has nowhere to go but in the trash or in your belly. Obviously, the planet needs you to reduce waste, so you have a duty to perform. While I would never stop you from eating the fudgy scrapings straight away, I have a delicious proposition: Use the leftover batter to make brownie toast.

The idea of toasting batter on a slice of bread is a reflection of the popular French snack, bostock, or frangipane toast. Frangipane is an almond batter with sugar, butter, and eggs, and it can be used in a number of pastries. When it bakes, the egg cooks and the mixture becomes something of a buttery, dense cake. Sound familiar? Frangipane shares a lot of ingredients with the brownie, and has a similar consistency. But let’s make it chocolate.

Brownie toast before baking.Photo: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

After you get the main batch of brownies in the oven, smear the leftover brownie batter onto a piece of toast. Pop the toast into the oven (heck, it’s already on 350°F). You can use a sheet pan or place the toast carefully on the rack if you like to live dangerously. Depending on how much batter you have on the toast and if you like well-cooked or gooey brownies, the time will vary by a few minutes, somewhere between 10-15 minutes. The surface of the brownie will have a thin, shiny, crackly skin just like the regular batch of brownies, and the bottom and edges of the bread will be nicely toasted. Each bite delivers a tennis match of textures: First it’s crunchy toast on the bottom, then sticky, chewy brownie above, then back to the bread, soft and tender underneath the brownie layer.

Brownie toast after eight minutes in the air fryer.Photo: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

If you’re at advanced brownie toast levels and you keep brownie batter in your fridge specifically to make this toast, you can air fry it to shave off a few minutes. Set the air fryer to 300°F on the “bake” setting, and put the chocolatey toast in for 8-10 minutes. I used a box mix from Betty Crocker, but this will work with any brownie batter. Brioche slices are my favorite for sweet toast snacks—the malty, eggy flavors are a nice complement—but I can see anything from a cinnamon raisin bagel to a crusty sourdough doing justice for brownie toast. It’s simple, satisfying, and an excellent switch-up to downing raw batter off the spoon. Strangely, you might even find you happen to have even more “leftover” batter for yourself the next time you whip up a batch of brownies.