Why do brownies come out cakey

Before you begin to bake, you need to find a recipe that suits your preferred difficulty level and desired brownie consistency.

There are basically two kinds of brownies: cake-like and fudgy. The two typically call for different amounts of chocolate and consequently generate different results. In addition, read the instructions thoroughly before you get started. Often the ratio of chocolate to butter could be different than you'd expect. Or, the recipe may call for adding melted butter to sugar instead of creaming the butter and sugar together. There's a reason recipes call for certain types of pans.

Even a couple of inches makes a difference , according to the Food Network. For example, thinner brownies in a longer, flatter pan cook faster than thicker brownies in a smaller, taller pan, so be sure to monitor the cook time and adjust accordingly. Otherwise, you run the risk of having crispier, overcooked desserts. As with picking the perfect bottle of wine to pair with your meal, you need the best type of chocolate for brownies.

After all, chocolate is the focus of the dessert. According to Craftsy, using baking chocolate gives you the most control over the sweetness of your brownies. But if your recipe calls for sweeter chocolate, such as milk chocolate or semisweet morsels, you'll want to adjust your recipe's sugar levels accordingly. Once you add the five major ingredients chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, and flour , you're several strokes and 45 minutes away from heaven. Unfortunately, if you neglect a key step in the mixing , then that heaven quickly turns into a disaster.

Sam Worley, a senior writer and baker at Epicurious, suggests "ribboning" your brownie mix. That means whipping the eggs and sugar until it becomes a pale yellow hue. Fudgy brownies have a higher fat-to-flour ratio than cakey ones. So add more fat -- in this case, butter and chocolate. A cakey batch has more flour and relies on baking powder for leavening. The amount of sugar and eggs does not change whether you're going fudgy or cakey.

A little less chocolate, a little less butter, but more flour yields a taller, more cakey brownie -- that bakes faster than its fudgy relation. If your batch is still not fudgy enough, gradually increase the amount of butter and chocolate, or decrease the flour. Initially, I thought there were just two camps, cakey versus fudgy, and I was firmly planted in the cakey camp.

All of these brownie recipes have enough chocolate flavor to satisfy a chocolate yearning, and they all have similar ingredients. But because of the varying amounts of chocolate, butter, sugar, and flour, the texture of each brownie is quite different. I especially love chopped toasted walnuts in the cakey version. A fudgy brownie is dense, with a moist, intensely chocolatey interior. I think of it as somewhere between a rich truffle torte and a piece of fudge.

Because the batter is quite dense, I suggest beating it vigorously with a wooden spoon to ensure a smooth, even texture. A chewy brownie is moist, but not quite as gooey as a fudgy one. A cakey brownie has a moist crumb and a slightly fluffy interior. When I mix cakey brownies, I use a bit of cake-baking technique, too: creaming the butter and sugar first rather than melting the butter and then whisking the batter to aerate the mixture and get a light crumb.

I think this brownie improves on sitting at least one and even two days after you bake it. While I encourage you to experiment with different chocolates, I got delicious results in all these recipes with supermarket-handy unsweetened and bittersweet chocolate. Fudgy brownies baked three minutes too short can be unpleasantly gooey; chewy brownies baked three minutes too long become tough and dry. Brownies will cook more quickly in metal pans than in glass, which is what accounts for the wide time windows in the recipes.

First, press your fingers gently into the center of the pan. Continue baking for 5 to 8 minutes and then insert the toothpick again near the center.

Brownies are done when the toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs still clinging. Start testing for doneness before the recipe says to. Press gently in the center of the pan—the brownie should feel like it has just set. Then insert a toothpick to be sure.

For uniform squares, flip the cooled, whole brownie out of the pan. Lining the pan bottoms with parchment makes it much easier to get the brownie out of the pan.