Brownies

Fudgy brownies with walnuts

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City/Region: Chicago, Illinois

Time Period: 1904

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I love a gooey, chocolatey brownie, so I opted not to make the first recipe for something called brownies from 1896, because it had no chocolate and instead used molasses. Certainly not the brownies of my heart.

There are a couple of origin stories about brownies, but the one for Bangor brownies goes that a housewife forgot to put baking powder into her chocolate cake. While I question the validity of this story, we do see a lot of recipes for Bangor brownies during the early 20th century that closely resemble brownies today.

While these may not rival my favorite modern ones, they’re very good. They come out fudgy and dense without being heavy and have a surprising amount of chocolate flavor for the amount of chocolate in the recipe. No matter their origin, brownies haven’t changed all that much in the last 120 years.

“Bangor Brownies
Cream one-half cup of butter, one cup sugar. Add two squares (one-quarter cake) Baker’s chocolate, melted, two eggs. One half-cup pastry flour and one-half cup chopped walnuts. Spread on baking tins and bake fifteen minutes in a moderate oven.”

— Service Club Cook Book, 1904

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Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (115 g) salted butter, softened
• 1 cup (200 g) sugar
• 2 oz (57 g) Baker’s unsweetened chocolate
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup (60 g) pastry flour or all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (60 g) chopped walnuts

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter the bottom and sides of an 8x8 inch (20x20 cm) square pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
2. Beat the butter until it’s nice and smooth. Add the sugar and beat until it’s fluffy.
3. Melt the chocolate by heating an inch or two (3 to 6 cm) of water in a small saucepan to a simmer. Put the chocolate in a heat-safe bowl and place it over the simmering water, making sure that the bottom of the bowl doesn’t come into contact with the water. You just want the steam to gently melt the chocolate. Stir it a few times to help it melt, and it should be ready in a couple of minutes.
4. Add the melted chocolate to the butter and sugar mixture and stir it to combine. Be sure to stir it well enough so that no streaks of chocolate remain and the whole mixture has cooled a bit. If the mixture is too hot, it can scramble the eggs in the next step.
5. Lightly beat the eggs just to break them up and mix them together, then stir them into the brownie batter.
6. After the eggs have been fully incorporated, add half of the flour and gently mix it in, then mix in the other half.
7. Stir in the walnuts.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread it out evenly into all the corners.
9. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out with some gooey bits sticking to it. You don’t want it liquidy, but you also don’t want the knife to come out clean.
10. When the brownies are done, set them on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes, then turn them out and let them cool completely.
11. Cut into squares and serve them forth.

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