Types of Brownies
Brownies are a simple dessert to make, comprising just a few basic ingredients, usually butter, sugar, chocolate, eggs and flour. There are innumerable recipes for brownies available with slight variations on ingredients to alter flavor and texture. Most brownie recipes, regardless of additions such as nuts or variations on icing, fall into four main categories: fudge, cake-like, chewy and blondie. Does this Spark an idea?
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Fudge Brownies
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Fudge brownies get their name from their creamy, fudge-like texture. This texture is obtained by using a minimum of flour in the recipe and no leavening at all. Your fudge brownies will be creamier, denser and richer if you melt the butter rather than simply creaming it with sugar as other recipes may call for.
Cake-like Brownies
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Cake-like brownies are exactly what they sound like: They have more flour and thus come out like tiny chocolate cakes. Recipes for cake-like brownies call for more flour and less butter than fudge brownies and include baking powder, which leavens the finished products and makes them soft, light and cake-like. These types of brownies are more commonly iced, as creamy icing sits better on top of a cake-like base than it would on a fudge brownie. Butter in cake-like brownies should be creamed together with sugar. The mixing process during creaming adds air into the mixture, which causes the brownies to rise higher and bake into a fluffier dessert.
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Chewy Brownies
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Chewy brownies have a texture unique from fudge or cake-like brownies, usually obtained by adding an extra egg to the recipe. The starch found in the chocolate adds to the chewy texture in the finished product as well; unsweetened chocolate has the most starch, while semi-sweet chocolate has less and results in a creamier texture to the brownies. Mixing both unsweetened and semi-sweet chocolate will result in a richer, chewier brownie than using just one type. You may need to add a tablespoon or two of cocoa powder to round out the flavor; brownie recipes are easily customizable to your personal tastes.
Blondies
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According to some food historians, blondie bar recipes actually predate brownies. They are essentially the same recipe but use butterscotch instead of chocolate. Blondie bars were known as butterscotch bars before brownies gained popularity in the early 20th century. The butterscotch treats only became known as blondies as a method of comparing their similarity, yet differences in color and flavor, with the more-popular brownies.
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References
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