Have you ever tried without these and still had the crust?
Yes
The chips are usually a last-minute mix-in, and I only use them sometimes
The sugar is what makes the difference for me
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My Medrichs usually come out like the Princess, SK, Food52, and @naf ; there isn’t a well-defined, shiny crust. Hmmm…
Are you microwaving or double boilering?
You got the crusts when using the full amount of butter, too, right?
I’ll have to check my notes, maybe I started reducing the sugar on recent batches.
@naf, did the flavor improve on subsequent days?
I added 10 more minutes of cooking, so it was slightly too cooked for me.
Very strange, the mixture became black after mixing in the Kitchen Aid. I used half white sugar and half cane sugar.
Before cooking:
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Heated up the butter slightly with sugar in MW.
All gone the first day.
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Adam Ragusea covered brownies with thin, shiny crust in the below video:
I haven’t tried his recipe/technique but he summarizes his conclusions up front then explains the processes he used to arrive at it for the rest of the video if you don’t want to watch the whole thing.
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Here is Smitten Kitchens writeup of Alice Medrich’s recipe - mainly she uses the microwave for melting.
With all brownies, the only think I don’t skimp on is the instruction from “the box” - ie the brownie mixes that we used back in college: 40 strokes before baking (and before adding any mix-ins).
(I haven’t seen any analysis of what that does, but it’s possible that it’s what others achieve by creaming first.)
What cocoa did you use?
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Valrhona cocoa powder
The Dutch processed will give you darker brownies like in the food52 picture and yours.
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Yup. That’s why I asked.
Might have affected texture as well.
Sorry, in the US we may have differing terminology.
By white sugar, do you mean beet sugar? Over here, most sugar sold in supermarkets is sourced from cane and is “white”. Darker sugars like “raw”/turbinado are becoming increasingly popular, however.
I mean, I gotta ask - why on earth wouldn’t he halve the recipe to 1 egg for his experiments and conserve ingredients.
Batch size doesn’t affect the “skin.” Sigh.
ETA:
I did wonder if my 40 strokes was part of the difference, which this confirms because that definitely helps dissolve the sugar. Also, turbinado crystals are bigger than white sugar (in the US), so that explains my own experiences as well.
The most interesting bit to me was where he just rests the batter - now I know how to save myself the 40 strokes. But… brownies are usually a last-minute dessert for me, so I guess not.
@naf - Try again, with a half batch!
Here, we use the term caster sugar. Yes it’s usually made of beetroot.
Sorry for the confusion. By cane sugar, I meant cassonade, which is brown sugar or raw cane sugar. Here, raw cane sugar becomes so fashionable and « healthy », white refined caster sugar is sometimes difficult to find in normal supermarket.
That’s a good question (especially if he did 50 batches or whatever he said). If I were to guess it may be because it’s hard to find a half size brownie pan and he wanted to emulate the common baking conditions in trying to isolate what causes the skin. Then again, I’m not an apologist for the guy and I haven’t tried the recipe so I’m inclined to think it was a bit wasteful, too.
Actually a loaf pan perfectly fits a half batch.
But yeah, it was just my first thought so I shared it. 
If you can find caster sugar from sugar cane and use only that sugar in the recipe, I think it will make a difference as far as thin crust development.
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Beet sugar and cane sugar are both chemically sucrose, so if the video guy’s analysis is right, it shouldn’t matter - other than the ability to dissolve.
@naf if you only heated the butter slightly, it’s entirely possible that the sugar didn’t dissolve enough for a crust per the video guy’s experiments.
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They don’t behave the same. In my experience, beet sugar wont caramelize like cane sugar.
Yes, it’s possible the mixture wasn’t hot enough to dissolve enough of the sugar. Caster sugar dissolves easier than American granulated sugar, though. Also, @Saregama’s 40 strokes could be helping dissolve more sugar. (Just saw you added this theory above.)
@Saregama, do you use cold eggs?
Yes, the recipe calls for cold eggs added one at a time.
And actually the 40 strokes are in the recipe - I just looked again.
Epi’s picture looks like mine, with the crust. SK’s doesn’t - it looks like the one in your bakeoff link.
Agree on caramelizing sugar - but even different cane sugar brands don’t caramelize the same way.
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