Ina Garten's 6-Ingredient Dessert Recipe from 2012 Has Taken TikTok by Storm
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In the chaotic world of TikTok food trends— where butter boards and “girl dinner” rise and fall with alarming speed—it takes something truly special to cut through the noise. Enter: the 13-year-old Ina Garten recipe that has become the internet’s latest obsession.
The Barefoot Contessa’s Brownie Pudding is a devastatingly simple six-ingredient masterpiece. A video of Garten making the indulgent dessert was resurfaced on TikTok in early November, and videos of users trying the recipe have since racked up millions of views and a seemingly endless supply of rave reviews.
The recipe, which originally appeared in Garten’s 2012 cookbook Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics, requires nothing more than a few ingredients you probably already have on hand. Some sugar, butter, eggs, good cocoa powder, a little flour, and some vanilla beans are all you need to whip up the now TikTok-viral dish. If you really want to make it fancy, you can also include some framboise and vanilla ice cream to serve it with, but Garten says those are optional. The result is a molten, fudgy confection that splits the difference between a brownie and a pudding, emerging from the oven with a crackly top and obscenely gooey center.
What makes this particular moment so delicious is the collision of Garten’s old-school, unfussy elegance paired with TikTok’s dopamine-driven recipe culture. While the platform typically favors flashy, high-concept creations (see: the baked feta pasta sensation of 2021), there’s something so deeply satisfying about watching a recipe this straightforward gain a new (and probably younger) audience. You don’t need a fancy stand mixer or know how to master a temperamental soufflé; just six basic ingredients and an hour of baking time stand between you and pure chocolate bliss.
As we barrel toward the holidays, when anxiety runs high, and everyone’s pretending they have their act together, Garten’s brownie pudding basically begs you to keep it simple. It’s the kind of dessert you can whip up before guests arrive, serve in the same dish it was made in, and still look like the effortlessly chic party host Ina has trained us all to aspire to be.
Get the full recipe from Food Network or the Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics cookbook.