The Secret Ingredient for Fudgy Brownies That Stay Moist for Days

Stack of brownies

Sometimes kitchen experiments go smoothly—and other times not so much. And as frustrating as a culinary flop can be, those misses can be the inspiration we need to discover something better.

When we were scrolling through TikTok recently we ran across Joell Park's account, where we quickly went down the rabbit hole of her fun food videos. One that caught our eye was her post about the viral brownie recipe from KPop icon Felix from Stray Kids.

The recipe has been making the rounds and some folks, like @littleremyfood and @thedatenightkitchen, have had good luck with it. But when Joell gave it a shot it and said it was a "kind of a flop" in her kitchen. Because she's a food pro, she took matters into her own hands and made a few tweaks, including one we're filing away to use in our future brownie life.

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Her first tweak was to replace Felix's espresso crystals with a couple of shots of espresso. She also upgraded to a fancier chocolate bar than the Hershey's he used in his recipe. But it was the next addition that got our attention. When the brownies were fresh out of the oven, she drizzled them with a little oat milk.

“To avoid the brownies drying out over time, I actually poured a little bit of oat milk on them right out of the oven," Joelle says in the video. "As it cools, it absorbs in and is super rich and moist."

While that seemed like a kooky addition when we first saw it, after the tip sunk in (pun absolutely intended) we realized its genius. We're fans of tres leches cake and pretty much any and all poke cakes, both of which call for pouring some sort of liquid over a baked cake to make it moist and tender. In those desserts, holes are typically poked into the cake with a fork or the handle of a wooden spoon, but we can see why Joelle wouldn't want to mar the top of her brownies with holes.

When she sliced into the brownies they definitely looked moist and fudgy, so we can't wait to try this with our next batch of brownies. If we don't have oat milk on hand we bet that regular milk or another plant-based milk would also do the trick. It also makes us wonder if something like a splash of flavored creamer or chocolate or strawberry milk might be a fun addition too. There's only one way to find out.

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