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Romanian Meringue Brownies – Negrese: a decadent cocoa brownie with a sweet and fluffy meringue topping.

Meringue brownies, a soft, moist cake topped with sweet and delicious meringue and sprinkled with chocolate. Super easy and quick to make, a recipe I often bake with my children.

And if you like brownies just as much as I do, have a look at these Zucchini Chocolate Brownies, or these Cherry ones. The meringue brownies and the Romanian Biscuit Salami were the first cakes I baked myself when I was still a child.

The brownie part is amazing, dense, and slightly moist, sweet, and chocolatey, but what I like most is this light topping which really adds a new dimension to an otherwise regular brownie. Give it a try, you won’t be disappointed!

What do you need?

The basic brownie ingredients:

Eggs, sugar, flour, unsweetened cocoa powder, butter, milk, baking powder, vanilla extract, and some dark chocolate to sprinkle on top.
All regular and rather cheap ingredients.

How to make meringue brownies?

Cake:

Separate the eggs. You will use the egg yolks to make the batter and the whites for the meringue. Set the whites aside in a clean bowl.
Beat the yolks, sugar, and pinch of salt together until light and fluffy.
Add butter and mix.
Add the milk and mix.
In another bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder and add them to the eggs.
Bake the cake for about 15-20 minutes.
Check after 15 minutes, the batter should have formed a crust and should not be very jiggly in the middle when pushed with the finger. If it is still too jiggly bake for another few minutes.

Meringue:

Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt on high speed until quite stiff.
Very slowly add sugar and vanilla extract and continue beating until the mixture is stiff and glossy.
Reduce the oven temperature to 160 degrees Celsius/ 320 degrees Fahrenheit.
Spread the mixture on top of the cake and continue baking for about 10 minutes until the meringue has risen and is slightly golden.
Grate the chocolate and sprinkle on top of the hot cake.

Tips

Always use a digital kitchen scale when baking, it guarantees for best results (Amazon affiliate link).
Make sure that the beaters of the mixer are very clean before you start beating the whites. Any trace of fat will stop them from becoming stiff.
Use grated chocolate and not chocolate chips for topping the cake. The chips are too large and will not start to melt as nicely as the grated chocolate.
Sprinkle the chocolate on the cake as soon as you take the cake out of the oven. The heat will cause the chocolate to melt slightly and that is really nice.
I always use dark chocolate, but milk chocolate is fine as well.