Brownies two ways. The brownie was supposed to have been invented by Bertha Palmer of the Palmer House in Chicago, who passed it out as a dainty treat for the ladies before the Columbian Exposition. I have eaten the Palmer House brownie, which has nuts on top and is served with ice cream and chocolate sauce. To my knowledge, however, this origin legend is unsubstantiated outside of the Palmer House website. The first documented brownie recipe appeared in Fannie Farmer’s original cookbook, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, in 1896, and it was flavored with molasses, according to the excellent brownie entry in The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink. The entry makes no mention of the Palmer House, but it does confirm that “all early brownies contained chopped nuts.” The revised Fannie Farmer cookbook in 1905 included the first chocolate brownie, and the early recipes used little flour and a lot of butter and chocolate.
There are two brownie recipes I have worked from in recent years: One, in Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home, uses chocolate chip pieces in the center to make them fudgy inside and create a mosaic of different chocolate textures and intensities. Using relatively little flour, it is more of a cookie brownie than a cake brownie, in this respect bringing it closer to the original. The version in The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion uses much less chocolate (6 ounces of melted chocolate, as opposed to one cup of cocoa powder plus 6 ounces of chocolate bits), and a little more flour (1 and ⅓ cups instead of ¾ cup). These are more evenly textured yet retain a dark and rich flavor, and are perhaps more suited to public events with children on occasions when you don’t want to create a surprise. The other question I always have is whether brownies need frosting. In the case of the King Arthur brownie, I think they do; a little bit of fudge on top won’t hurt.
But what’s really important is that I’m beginning to think brownies, and perhaps all kinds of bars, must be refrigerated after baking. They seem to lose their luster once they sit out unattended, and they risk becoming that forgotten dessert that you pick up at a cafeteria just because it’s there.
(Photo: Michigan Avenue, Chicago.)
365 Days of Food 