If your brownies turn out cakey, it may be because too much flour was added to the batter. If you measure your ingredients - especially dry ingredients like flour and cocoa - by volume (with measuring cups) instead of by weight (with a kitchen scale), it's easy to over-measure and end up with a too-thick batter. For perfect-every-time brownies, we recommend using a kitchen scale and following our weight measurements! Cakey brownies can also result if you make any changes to the recipe. If you reduce the sugar, if you use all white sugar (instead of the brown sugar), or if you add extra components that aren't listed in the recipe (like stirring some chocolate syrup or melted chocolate into the batter, or adding cornstarch), this recipe can turn out fluffy and cakey, rather than fudgy.