 A homemade brownie | |
| Type | Dessert bar |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | United States |
| Region or state | Worldwide |
| Main ingredients | Flour,butter,eggs,chocolate orcocoa powder,sugar |
| Variations | Blondie |
Achocolate brownie, or simply abrownie, is achocolate bakeddessert bar. Brownies come in a variety of forms and may be either fudgy or cakey, depending on their density. Brownies often have a glossy "skin" on their upper crust and may include ingredients such as nuts, frosting, or chocolate chips. A variation containingbrown sugar andvanilla rather than chocolate in the batter is called a blond brownie orblondie. The brownie was developed in the United States at the end of the 19th century and popularized in the country during the first half of the 20th century.
Brownies are typically eaten by hand or with utensils, and may be accompanied by a glass of milk, served warm withice cream (à la mode), topped with whipped cream, or sprinkled with powdered sugar. In North America, they are common homemade treats and they are also popular in restaurants,ice cream parlors, andcoffeehouses.[citation needed] The same popularity in cafes is seen in Sweden.[1]
In the Southern United States, brownies prepared from cake mix are a rare homemade dessert eaten on weekdays.[2]
During the 1880s in the United States, dinner parties themed around the color brown were popular events. Following the standard set inlifestyle magazines, hosts served brown dishes—bread, soup, turkey—includingsautéed mushrooms, which were then known colloquially as "brownies". By the following decade, the event had evolved into a feast of sweets under the name "Brownie Banquets", parties decorated with figurines of illustratorPalmer Cox's comic charactersThe Brownies.Chocolate ice cream,graham crackers, and brownies were common elements with "brownie" now used to refer to a molasses cake.[3] One such recipe appeared in the 1896 version ofFannie Farmer'sThe Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, containing molasses and a nut at their center, but no chocolate.[4][5]
In 1899, a recipe for an unleavened chocolate cake was published in a Chicago cookbook under the name "Brownie cake". Food writerStella Parks identifies this as a "proto-brownie", the earliest she could find evidence of. Through 1904, a recipe for a brownie with modern ingredient ratios were published in newspapers in Chicago and theNortheastern United States regions; Parks infers from the broad area and quick succession these recipes appeared that they were drawing on a common source.[3]
In the 1906 version of her cookbook, Farmer modified her recipe to include chocolate.[6] Sources differ on how this came about; biochemistShirley Corriher proposed in 2008 that these could have been created by Farmer reducing the flour in her 1896 chocolate cookie recipe,[4] while Parks suggests Farmer may have been influenced by a 1905 visit to the Laconia Woman's Club, who had published a recipe for chocolate brownies in a 1904 cookbook. This edition ofThe Boston Cooking-School Cook Book was read widely, and for the first time the entire US was introduced to the brownie, with newspapers and cookbooks printing their own recipes over the following years. Recipes for brownies at this time required sugar and butter becreamed, giving these early brownies a cakey rather than fudgy texture.[7]
Farmer trained Maria Willett Howard who ultimately created Lowney's Brownies forWalter M. Lowney Co.The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America reported that her recipe was often used in New England before 1912.[6]
By 1907, the brownie was well established in a recognizable form, appearing inLowney's Cook Book by Maria Willet Howard (published by Walter M. Lowney Company, Boston) as an adaptation of the Boston Cooking School recipe for a "Bangor Brownie". It added an extra egg and an additional square of chocolate, creating a richer, fudgier dessert. The name "Bangor Brownie" appears to have been derived from the town ofBangor, Maine, which anapocryphal story states was the hometown of a housewife who created the original brownie recipe. Maine food educator and columnistMildred Brown Schrumpf was the main proponent of the theory that brownies were invented in Bangor.[a] WhileThe Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink (2007) refuted Schrumpf's premise that "Bangor housewives" had created the brownie, citing the publication of a brownie recipe in a 1905Fannie Farmer cookbook,[12] in its second edition,The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America (2013) said it had discovered evidence to support Schrumpf's claim, in the form of several 1904 cookbooks that included a recipe for "Bangor Brownies".[13]
One legend about the creation of brownies is that ofBertha Palmer, a prominentChicago socialite whose husband owned thePalmer House Hotel.[14] In 1893, Palmer asked a pastry chef for a dessert suitable for ladies attending the ChicagoWorld's Columbian Exposition. She requested a dessert that would be smaller than a piece of cake, and easily eaten from boxed lunches. The result was the Palmer House Brownie, made of chocolate withwalnuts and anapricot glaze. The Palmer House Hotel still serves this dessert to patrons made from the same recipe. The name was given to the dessert some time after 1893, but was not used by cookbooks or journals at the time.
During the 1960s, brownies were introduced to TV dinners.[15]
Early recipes, such as Lowney's Brownies, included chocolate, butter, eggs, salt, sugar, vanilla, flour, and chopped nuts, while modern recipes also include brown sugar.[6] The 1976 edition ofLizzie Black Kander'sThe Settlement Cook Book also includes cocoa powder as a replacement for chocolate, baking powder, and walnuts. The book states that butter and chocolate should be melted together, while beaten eggs and sugar should be added to a separate mixture. The two should then be combined and beaten again, after which the remaining ingredients should be added.[16] Corriher wrote that brownies can sometimes also include dried cherries and coffee beans.[17]
In North American Jewish communities, where brownies are a frequent element in post-synagogue spreads, kosher brownies appropriate for Passover consumption feature prominently in community recipe collections and cookbooks.[18]
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