Is a brownie considered to be a cake? Or in the cake family?

 Are you making a confectionary family tree? We're not sure scientists have actually categorized all baked goods as to kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.

People often differentiate between fudgy/fudge-like and cake-like brownies, but the authoritative sources we consulted uniformly put brownies in the cookie family. Among all the defining features that make a cookie a cookie, it is the "hand-held" bit that really matters.

But – and it is a big but – cookies seem to fall squarely in the cake category. The word cookie comes from the Dutch koekje, which simply means "little cake."

The brownie's sister, the blondie, is, of course, in the same family, although rumor has it they don't get on well.

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