Kitchen Detail: We All Need a Brownie!

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By Nancy Pollard

After owning one of the best cooking stores in the US for 47 years—La Cuisine: The Cook’s Resource in Alexandria, Virginia—Nancy Pollard writes Kitchen Detail, a blog about food in all its aspects—recipes, film, books, travel, superior sources, and food-related issues.

WITH ALL the scary headlines both in the New World and the Old, it is time for a milk and cookies break.

Not thinking of a flat cookie here, but one of the great American contributions to Earth’s lexicon of treats: the brownie. I actually developed this particular brownie recipe over several summers at the beach in Emerald Isle, North Carolina. (I had to check to make sure Emerald Isle was still there after the horrific damage caused by Hurricane Helene. It was hit hard but survived to become a relief distribution hub for western North Carolina.)

I learned early on that if I was going to spend seven days at the ocean, I wanted a beach-front rental with new-ish appliances and lots of couches for lounging and watching rented movies at 2am. Also, there would have to be some nifty balcony facing the surf where I could read and pretend to watch the children. And there had to be air conditioning. (I was  emotionally scarred by my childhood vacations in Delaware’s Rehoboth Beach where the houses we usually rented never had AC.)

I always made brownies at the beach, once I learned how to open a cake-mix box—and while Betty Crocker and Pillsbury are both certainly synonymous with cake and cookie mixes, Duncan Hines was clearly superior.  As an adult on vacation, however, I graduated to earmarking recipes and making brownies many times during our week’s seaside sojourn.

But I digress. Why anyone wants a brownie to be “cakelike” is one of those mysteries in life that I have explored, so I can say with authority that they are a definite no. As a treat with a glass of milk or a cup of coffee, a fudgy brownie is what you require.

An American Invention

Unlike Chicken Parm,  the unwanted stepchild of Italian cooking in the US, the brownie is a full-blooded American invention. Brownies are made with blocks of unsweetened chocolate, a unique American baking product, one never used in European baking. According to my valued source, Wikipedia, the first manufacturers of unsweetened chocolate were a Dr. James Baker and John Hannon, who in the 17th century, brought in cocoa beans from the West Indies. Their unsweetened chocolate, produced in Dorchester, Massachusetts, was used to make a hot drink.

The Baker family inherited the company, and an unsweetened baking chocolate was developed and heavily advertised in the 19th century. The first recorded recipe for a brownie is from the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago during the 1893 World Exposition. Interestingly, the brownie was commissioned by Bertha Palmer, a remarkable woman in many respects, as a treat for ladies visiting this famous fair. It featured walnuts and an apricot glaze, and it is still on their menu today.

Although in this recipe I started out using the unsweetened Baker’s squares of my childhood, I have since graduated to using a 100% chocolate from Valrhona, and from a few Italian chocolate manufacturers. The flavor is a bit more “chocolatey,” and the aroma too. But any unsweetened chocolate will give you very good results. I use unsalted butter, as the water content is higher in salted butter than in unsalted. This mixture will fit a 9×13-inch pan, and you can use a ceramic, glass or metal pan; the last mentioned will give you crisper edges than ceramic or glass. Aluminum or tinned steel will give you better baking results than stainless steel. I grease the pan and sprinkle powdered almonds (also called almond flour) on the bottom—but this last addition is optional. It’s as close as my family will allow me to get to making the brownies with actual nuts. I fear I wait in vain for them to outgrow their aversion.