You’ll love these incredibly fudgy pineapple brownies! Made with fresh pineapple and rum, they melt in your mouth with tropical chocolate flavors.
Fudgy Rum Pineapple Brownies
You might not know this, but Recipe for Perfection was originally called The Perfect Brownie. My original idea for blogging was to test out brownie recipes to try to find the perfect brownie.
About six months after the blog began, I decided to rename my blog. At that point, I had published more than three dozen different brownie recipes. Renaming my blog allowed me to freely cook and publish any kind of food that interested me, not just brownies.
Even though my blog name has changed, I still love brownies. When my husband suggested that I try making pineapple brownies, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to experiment.
If At First You Don’t Succeed…
In the past, I’ve used a butter infusion method I learned from this basil brownie recipe to infuse flavors, such as fresh mint, into brownies. Hoping that it might work with fresh fruit as well as it did with fresh herbs, I chopped up some fresh pineapple, added it to a saucepan with melted butter, and let it sit for about twenty minutes.
It didn’t work. Unlike what had happened with the successful infusion of basil or mint, the butter did not pick up any pineapple flavor.
Many people would have reached for the pineapple flavoring at this point. I didn’t, because I wasn’t ready to give up on getting that fresh, straight-from-the-pineapple flavor into a brownie. I could also have simply added pineapple chunks to the brownie batter, but I wanted a luxuriously smooth texture- not a chunky one.
It was time to go back to the drawing board.
How to Add Fresh Fruit to Brownies… Without Turning Them Into a Cake
The problem with adding fresh fruit to brownies is water. Fresh fruit contains a lot of water. When you add water to a brownie recipe, you run the risk of turning it into cake. And a cakey brownie, while delicious, is not what I was going for.
I decided to take the mixture of warm melted butter and fresh pineapple chunks and run it through a food processor until silky smooth. My theory was that plain pineapple puree would add water, but a finely blended suspension of butter and pineapple might control the effect of the water on the brownies.
I watched closely as the brownies baked. I was concerned because the top of the brownies puffed up quite a bit, which is usually a sign of cakiness. They were still very puffy when I pulled them out of the oven, and I thought I’d probably treat myself to a cakey brownie snack and then go back to the drawing board again.
However, I left them alone to cool for about twenty minutes, and came back to a very pleasant surprise. The puffiness had completely deflated. I cut into a small corner to sample the texture, and- wonder of wonders!- there was not even the slightest hint of cake!
The Result
The pureed butter and fruit suspension worked beautifully. The texture was dense, fudgy, and velvety smooth. The pineapple flavor was subtle and refreshing, while the rum added an aromatic complexity to each bite. Chocolate, pineapple, and rum make a delicious combination!
Bonus: How to Cut Fudge Brownies the Easy Way
One thing I’ve learned from baking all these brownies is that the absolute best way to cut brownies is to use a disposable plastic knife. Even the fudgiest, most gooey brownies have trouble sticking to it. You’ll never use any other method again.
You’re welcome!
Fudgy Rum Pineapple Brownies
You'll love these incredibly fudgy pineapple brownies! Made with fresh pineapple and rum, they melt in your mouth with tropical chocolate flavors.
Ingredients
Equipment
- Food processor or blender
- 8 inch square pan
- Wire rack for cooling
Ingredients
- 12 tablespoons of unsalted butter
- 1 cup chopped fresh pineapple
- 2 tablespoons rum
- 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup unsweetened natural cocoa
- 1/3 cup all purpose flour
Instructions
-
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter an 8 inch square pan and line it with parchment paper, letting the paper overhang the pan so that you can use the overhang as handles to lift out the slab of brownies when they're done.
-
Place the butter, pineapple, and rum in a small saucepan or pot. Warm on the stove on low heat until the butter has melted.
-
Pour the mixture into a food processor or blender and process until completely smooth.
-
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, the butter mixture, salt, and vanilla. The mixture will be liquid and yellow in color.
-
Add the eggs one at a time, whisking after each, until fully incorporated. Add the cocoa and flour and stir until just combined.
-
Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with moist crumbs, but no wet batter. Let cool in the pan on a rack for 20 minutes, then use the parchment paper liner to lift out the brownies. Set on the rack to finish cooling.
Shaina
Oh my goodness these look incredibly fudgy and delicious. I’ve never put fruit in my brownies, but your idea of pureeing it with the melted butter just sounds genius. I will definitely be trying this!
Katie
I wasn’t sure about fruit in brownies at first, because I’m not a fan of fruit chunks in brownies, but having a smooth texture with fruity flavor is really good. 🙂
Dini @ Giramuk's Kitchen
I love fruits in brownies! Mine is Raspberries 🙂 The combo Pineapple and Rum must be fantastic!! Good luck with the competition!
Katie
Thank you Dini! It was your Basil Brownies that started me on the flavored butter track! 🙂
Chrisy @ Homemade Hooplah
I’m speechless! So many things I love in just one brownie 😀 And the method you used is really interesting – from the pictures, it worked out perfectly!
Katie
Thanks Chrisy! 🙂 I do love to experiment. Not all of my experiments succeed, but this one did!
Monique @ Ambitious Kitchen
These look great – I need to try the ones with basil!
kaitie
You had me at pineapple & chocolate. sounds fantastic. mmmm can’t wait to try them out here 🙂
Michelle @ The Complete Savorist
OH, how I adore these. Brownies, rum and pineapple…amazing.
cakeSpy
Love these!! Such an interesting partnering of flavors. Perfect for a retro tiki party, I would think!
Katie
We are such a tiki household! At least five tikis liven up our porch, living room, and other rooms in the house! 🙂
[email protected]
These look incredibly delicious! I’ve never made homemade brownies (always a box) and the addition of pineapple and rum sound awesome.
BritishMumUSA
So I fell in love with these the other day. Next weekend I will be baking these. Please pray for me. I will be using these to celebrate my new adventure in not babysitting anymore and getting back into the real work force!!!!
Now back to this amazing recipe. This is what I love about this site. You are not afraid of the challenge. You tell us about your failures, and how you grown and learn from them. THEN you give us the goodies, and we get to play with them and enjoy them!!!!! What more can we ask for, the then for you to come to our house with the brownies, and I will supply the wine and we will ENJOY together!!!
xoxoxo
Katie
That’s awesome! Write to me sometime and tell me about what you’re going to be doing for work that’s different from what you’ve been doing.
My epic fails are your gain! 🙂 Seriously, though, what you wrote is so nice because that’s really how I view this thing. I like to experiment and I like to be open about what goes wrong so that maybe someone else can avoid making the same mistake. I would love to come to your house with brownies! Someday, the brownie/wine meetup will happen!
sara
These look amazing! What a cool idea!
Sarah
I was searching to combine pineapple in my baking with chocolate and your recipe popped up. I had to make a kid friendly version and tweeked the recipe a bit so i could use coconut oil but I’m sitting here writing this while I’m waiting for it to finish cooking and it smells AMAZING! I even licked the bowl secretly so the kids didn’t get it. (So good). Can’t wait to see how it turns out. Having to wait till its cool is going to be super hard!
Katie
Yay! I hope it turns out wonderfully. Please let me know how the coconut oil works out for you- it’s a common substitution and it would be helpful for future visitors to know if it works well. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
msphack.tips
Wow, incredible blog layout! Ꮋow ⅼong haѵe you ƅeen blogging
for? yoᥙ made blogging loⲟk easy. Thᥱ oνerall look of yоur
website iѕ wonderful, ⅼet aⅼone thе content!
Sharon F
Made a pan today. Utterly indescribably delicious. Out of the ball park good. I cut butter to 1 stick. Worked fine. In my oven had to add 12 more minutes to complete cooking. They are in high contention for my black bean brownies i make all the time. Thank you!!