The Evolution of the Brownie

For something that is a relative newbie in the cake world, the brownie’s origins obscure. In fact their dense form defies the notion of an airy sponge so can a brownie really be classed as a cake at all? Dark, intense and squidgy - these chocolate squares are popular on both sides of the Atlantic but what is their origin?

The evolution of the brownie: 1896 brownie (bottom left); 1913 brownie (top); 2024 shop bought brownie (right)

If you read my earlier post of Chocolate Puffs you will know that chocolate was not generally considered as a cooking ingredient when it first arrived in Britain. Chocolate was a luxury item, predominantly consumed as a drink. However, technical innovations in the processing of cacao and the gradual reduction in price of cacao as cultivation of this commodity spread to Africa and Asia, ensured that it became more widely available in Britain. In the latter part of the nineteenth century recipes for chocolate cakes begin to appear (see for example Mary L Allen’s Five O’Clock Tea published in 1887) but it will be a while yet before the brownie puts in its first appearance.

The popular story about the brownie’s origin is that it was invented at the behest of Mrs Bertha Palmer, wife of a rich Chicago businessman who had built the Palmer House Hotel in the city in 1871. In 1893 the World’s Columbian Exposition took place in Chicago and Mrs Palmer was named chair of the Board of Lady Managers. Mrs Palmer felt that the great ladies of Chicago would need some sustenance when visiting the vast exhibition which covered over 686 acres in what is now Jackson Park. It appears she asked the hotel chefs to create a confection that was easy to transport and could be discreetly boxed. And so the brownie was born albeit with an apricot glaze often absent from modern recipes. You can find the hotel’s original recipe on its website.

Fannie Merritt Farmer’s 1896 brownie recipe

A brownie recipe appears in The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Farmer (1896) although curiously this contains no chocolate whatsoever relying on molasses to create the brown hue. Even Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes by Maria Parloa and Janet McKenzie Hill (1909), produced to promote the chocolate of Massachusetts firm Walter Baker & Co, lacks a brownie recipe. This website on New England Recipes lists a number of brownie recipes from the early twentieth century. The author, Mary Gage, has found advertisements for brownies predating the recipes so even if the recipe itself had not been printed it appears chocolate brownies were in existence. What is particularly interesting to note is that the brownie is often listed as a ‘candy’ or ‘biscuit’ rather than a cake.

A later brownie recipe (c. 1913) from The Boston Cooking School Cook Book

British food writer May Byron provided two recipes for brownies in her Cake Book (1915) although she concedes that it is difficult ‘to say where small cakes end and biscuits begin.’ The first is pretty much verbatim Fanny Farmer’s original recipe with the molasses and pecans replaced by treacle and walnuts. The second also appears to be based one from the Boston Cooking School Cook Book albeit from the revised edition published in 1910.

Brownie recipes on the internet are legion (see Nigella’s version here) so it hardly seems worth providing a recipe here. But I do like to have a tinker in the kitchen so I give you Farmer’s original and revised recipes with metric measurements for you to try. They are very different from the brownies we are accustomed to today, so let me know what you think.

Keep an eye out for the next episode of the podcast which will reveal an innovative use of brownies during the 1980s.

1896 Brownies

Ingredients (Makes 10-12)

Fannie Farmer’s 1896 Brownies

• 75g unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 40g icing sugar

• 110g treacle

• 1 medium egg, beaten

• 100g plain flour

• 115g pecan nuts, roughly chopped

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 160℃/150℃ Fan. Grease a 12 hole patty/cake tin.

2. Beat the butter with the icing sugar and treacle until smooth. Add the egg followed by the flour.

3. Fold in the pecan nut pieces then divide equally between the patty/cake holes.

4. Bake for 10-15 minutes until set. Fannie Farmer doesn’t indicate what sort of texture should be achieved in this recipe but in keeping with brownie tradition I would think slightly underdone is better than overdone here.

1913 Brownies

Ingredients (Makes 16 small squares or 8 larger pieces)

Fannie Farmer’s 1913 Brownies

• 200g caster sugar

• 55g melted buter

• 1 egg, unbeaten

• 60g dark chocolate (min. 70% cocoa solids), melted

• ¾ tsp vanilla extract

• 65g plain flour

• 60g walnut pieces

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 160℃/150℃ Fan. Line a 18cm/7” square, shallow baking tin with foil or foil baked baking paper leaving some overhanging the edges for ease of removal.

2. Beat the sugar, melted butter and egg together.

3. Add the melted chocolate and vanilla extract followed by the plain flour. Finally fold in the walnut pieces.

4. Pour into the prepared tin then bake for around 30 minutes. Like all true brownies they will still be squidgy in the middle when done.

5. As soon as you remove the brownie from the oven carefully lift the paper out of the tin then cut into the desired number of pieces. Allow to cool before serving.

Sources and Further Reading

The Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer (1910 edition - contains both recipes. See page 495 and 511)

‘History of Brownies’ by Mary Gage, New England Recipes website (2010)

‘Brownies: A History of a Classic Dessert’ by Carla Martin, US History Scene website

Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes by Maria Parloa and Janet McKenzie Hill (1909)