About Brownies

Basics

A brownie is a bar, square, or slice of rich, moist cake (usually chocolate), often with nuts. They are made with eggs, flour and sugar, baked in an oven and generally fall into two categories: 'cakey' and 'gooey.' To get a cakier brownie, use a smaller pan, more eggs, and bake them longer. For a fudgier brownie, use a larger pan and bake for a shorter amount of time.

History

Quite a few sources cite the first-known recipe for brownies as the 1897 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue, but this was just a recipe for a molasses candy merely called brownies. The two earliest published recipes for chocolate brownies appear in Boston-based cookbooks. The first was in the 1906 edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book edited by Fannie Merritt Farmer, which is an early version of the brownie we know today, utilizing 2 squares of melted Baker’s chocolate. The second, in 1907, was in Lowney’s Cook Book, written by Maria Willet Howard and published by the Walter M. Lowney Company of Boston. Ms. Howard, a protégé of Ms. Farmer, added an extra egg to Farmer’s recipe, creating Lowney’s Brownies, and then varied the recipe again by adding an extra square of chocolate to create Bangor Brownies. This, apparently, is the genesis of the idea that brownies were invented by a housewife in Bangor, Maine.

Sources: 1, 2.

Recipes

The AllRecipes.com Brownie Collection
Brownies @ Joy of Baking