Why it works: Cream cheese and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,746 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Make the base
Melt half the chocolate with the butter.
Mix these with one egg and the cake mix to form a stiff dough.
Pat the dough into a greased baking pan.
Add the topping and bake
Melt the remaining chocolate and mix it with the cream cheese, one egg, and sugar to taste.
Spread the topping onto the dough.
Bake according to the instructions on the cake mix box.
This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.
Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Cream cheese + buttertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,746 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Chocolate + sugartop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together15,399 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Cream cheese + chocolatetop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together895 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Egg + buttertop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together118,511 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Chocolate + buttertop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together10,480 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cake mix
- Forms the bulk of the dough and sets into the brownie base.
- Dark chocolate
- Adds rich chocolate flavor and fat that keeps the brownie moist.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and help the topping set as it bakes.
- Cream cheese
- Adds a tangy, creamy layer that softens the texture of the topping.
- Unsalted butter
- Adds fat for richness and helps the dough hold together.
The step that matters
Forming the stiff dough. The dough must be stiff enough to pat into the pan. If the chocolate and butter are too hot or too much liquid is added, the dough becomes loose and the base may bake unevenly.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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