Fudge, Meet Brownie

• If treats like fudge and brownies could speak, they might not get along. A brownie might accuse fudge of being way too intense, and fudge might label brownie as a sell-out. That’s because fudge -- with a few simple ingredients and a signature richness -- is a sumptuously strong treat that you can probably only eat a few squares of before risking a stomachache. Brownies, on the other hand, have rich ingredients, too, but they also include other additions that mellow the richness and make them rise in the oven, resulting in a less dense and a slightly more mild-flavored dessert. As a result, you can usually handle a bigger serving of a brownie.

Table of Fudge and Brownie Elements

• Smooth, creamy and intense, fudge is typically the result of a collision of fat, sugar and flavoring. Most fudge includes butter as its base, and sometimes, heavy cream or sweetened condensed milk is added to the mix. Then, sugar comes up to bat in powdered or syrup form. Once this mixture is beat together, flavorings are added, such as chocolate, maple syrup, or caramel. Brownies often have many of the same ingredients -- butter, sugar and flavorings -- but also typically include flour, a leavener like baking powder and eggs. The amount of these other ingredients varies, depending on whether you’re making a recipe for cakey, chewy or fudgy brownies.

A Chill Vs. a Bake

• After the ingredients for fudge come together, the mixture is placed in a pan and allowed to cool in the refrigerator for a few hours until set. Because the fudge contains no leavening agents, it doesn’t need to rise in the oven. Fudge also doesn’t include eggs that would require heating to a certain temperature to be safe to eat. Brownie batter, on the other hand, is always baked in the oven so that the mixture can rise and the eggs in the batter are safe to eat.

Chocoholics Beware

• While the words “fudge” and “brownie” might immediately make you think of chocolate, neither dessert is necessarily a chocolate-y treat. Chocolate is the most popular variety of fudge, and brownies are most often, as their name suggests, brown with cocoa flavoring, but both of these desserts come in non-chocolate form. Fudge is also made in many other varieties, such as butterscotch, maple and peanut butter. Brownies labeled as such are almost always chocolate-flavored, but blondies -- with a cookie-like, non-chocolate base -- are not made with a chocolate batter.