Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

It’s a doggy dog world.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

You cannot shame the shameless.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

This fight is for everything.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Food / An Evening Snack: Brownies!!!!

An Evening Snack: Brownies!!!!

by | 98 Comments

This post is in: ,

brownie2

The brownie was created at the Palmer House Hotel (now the Palmer House Hilton) in 1893. Mrs. Palmer, the hotel proprietor’s wife, asked her chef to create a new and unique dessert to be showcased at the 1893 Columbian Expedition being hosted in Chicago.

About ten years or so ago I was able to get my hands on the original recipe, which calls for an apricot glaze (which I don’t use), and tweaked it a bit. I recently made a batch as a thank you gift and took the picture above of the sliced brownies just about ready for shipment.

So here’s my take on the original brownie recipe*.

Ingredients:

1 pound, 2 ounces semisweet chocolate
1 pound butter
1 pound and 8 ounces light brown sugar
8 ounces cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
4 eggs
1 pound crushed walnuts
Directions:
Melt chocolate with butter in double boiler. Mix dry ingredients, except walnuts, into mixing bowl. Mix chocolate with dry ingredients, 4 to 5 minutes. Add eggs. Pour into 9-x12-inch baking sheet, sprinkle walnuts on top, press walnuts down slightly with your hand and bake in a preheated oven at 300 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes.
You will know the brownie is done when the edges start to become a little crispy and the brownie has raised about quarter-inch. Note that even when the brownie is properly baked, it will test as gooey with a toothpick in the middle due to the mixtures richness.
After removing from oven, allow to cool to room temperature then refrigerate over night before cutting.
* The original recipe calls for use granulated sugar. When I use granulated sugar I find that the mouthfeel of the brownies seems grainy. The light brown sugar alleviates that. The original recipe also calls for semi-sweet chocolate, but I prefer the dark chocolate.  One final important note: I don’t use the walnuts. Instead I mix toffee bits into the brownie batter.
Bon appetit! 

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  1. 1.

    Adam L Silverman

    I still have no idea why the periods at the ends of some sentences have a mind of their own.

  3. 3.

    Zinsky

    You forgot the half ounce of Hindu Kush 22%THC content cannabis (seedless), finely ground. Add to mix prior to baking…Enjoy the buzz.

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TaMara (BHF): I mix them into my tollhouse cookies as well. And the key to a good tollhouse cookie is to go 1/2 a cup of light brown sugar and 1/2 a cup of dark brown sugar. All light brown and the mouthfeel is too weak. All dark brown and the mouthfeel is too rich. And despite what’s currently on the back of the Nestle’s morsels bag its 2 cups and 2 ounces of flour!

  5. 5.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Zinsky: I don’t live in Colorado or Washington. And the kind of work I do requires I be willing to submit to random drug testing if so ordered.

  9. 9.

    Honus

    Now those are some brownies. A pound of chocolate, a pound of butter, a pound of walnuts and a pound and half of sugar with a cup of flour. I’m going to make some tomorrow. It compares with the old joy of cooking recipe for egg nog.

  10. 10.

    SiubhanDuinne

    When I was a little girl growing up in suburban Chicago, one of my very favorite treats was to go to the Palmer House with an older female relative (of which I had an abundance) for Something Chocolate.

    There was one restaurant there which had silver dollars embedded in the floor, at the intersection of the tiles. They always gave change in silver dollars as well. That was cool.

  12. 12.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Honus: They are more accurately, and are actually named, chocolate fudge brownies. They are very fudgie. And very, very rich. I had a colleague who was addicted to them. If I brought them in to the office we’d have to assign someone to make sure he didn’t blow up his pancreas!

  13. 13.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: Two Palmer House stories:
    1) My parents would stay there for criminology conferences – the American Society of Criminology rotates through Chicago and the Palmer House about every 5-7 years. I also would do so and would always try to go to the Midwest Political Science Association meeting, which is also always at the Palmer House. My favorite hotel in the US.
    2) A very, very close friend, essentially the little sister I didn’t know I wanted, from grad school grew up in the Palmer House. Her parents were professional hotel managers and when she was a little girl they managed the Palmer House.

  14. 14.

    Honus

    The joy of cooking recipe for egg nog is something like a dozen eggs, two quarts of heavy cream, a pound of confectioners sugar and a quart and a half of “the chosen liquor” I’ve never had a compliant.

  16. 16.

    Honus

    Suffice it to say that the greatest generation and those that raised them weren’t afraid of sugar and cholesterol.

  17. 17.

    Honus

    In the coldness of space, with some of that, you would be very comfortable. At least it works in the highest elevations of the West Virginia mountains.

  18. 18.

    Origuy

    I stayed at the Palmer a few years ago between Christmas and New Years. It was undergoing renovation and the room I had was barely big enough to move around in, so the price was reasonable. Still, I felt like a big shot walking into that lobby. You can’t beat the location.

  19. 19.

    debbie

    Do the brownies hold up okay? Most recipes I’ve tried that are all butter are very delicious but don’t hold their shape after they’ve been cut up. Or are they always kept refrigerated?

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: They do. That’s why you want to refrigerate them first. These held up for cutting and then three day shipping from Florida up north.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Origuy: I had the same thing for a conference back in 2009. I’ve since been there since they’ve finished the renovation. They did an amazing job. And you are correct there is nothing quite like the Grand Foyer of the Palmer House.

  28. 28.

    divF

    @Honus:

    the old joy of cooking recipe for egg nog

    That recipe gets a workout around here during the holiday season – I get complaints if I don’t make it several times between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

    Even though I make a non-alcoholic version, I cherish the Mark Twain quote from JoC in that recipe: “Too much of anything is bad, but too much whiskey is just enough.”

    ETA: I put a bottle of brandy next to the egg nog bowl, though.

  29. 29.

    Betty Cracker

    Coincidentally, I’m binge-watching “The Great British Baking Show” on Netflix. The spawn and I have been watching many foodie reality shows recently (“Next Food Network Star,” “Food Truck Race,” “America’s Worst Cooks,” etc.).

    We’re both struck by how different the British show is from the American ones. The US shows are so much more cut-throat and aggressive in tone. Don’t know if that’s generally true or not.

    Anyhoo, no brownies so far! To me, the great brownie controversy is cakey vs. dense. Both are acceptable, but I prefer dense.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @Betty Cracker

    Going bye-bye from Netflix at the end of the month is There Will Be Blood. Daniel Day-Lewis is quite good (when isn’t he, really?) and the movie is certainly perfectly watchable but it is one of those that makes one wonder why they put such effort into making it at all.

    Don’t know if it’s just the way Day-Lewis’ affectation of an American accent comes out or if it was a conscious choice – he more often than not sounds like John Huston.

  32. 32.

    M31

    @Honus:

    and a quart and a half of “the chosen liquor” I’ve never had a compliant.

    oh I think you’ll always have a compliant

  34. 34.

    divF

    One thing that I have been finding in my dessert-making efforts is that old recipes use more sugar than is palatable to modern tastes, or at least to those of me and mine. I use half of the sugar in the JoC eggnog recipe Honus gave above, and my inclination would be to do something comparable to the brownie recipe. The risk is that such a decrease would change the texture and baking.

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Always good to get confirmation. For some reason they changed the flour amount for the recipe on the back of the bag some years back. Most likely to standardize it. I think its now 2 and 1/2 cups. As for the brown sugar, I don’t ever remember seeing it specified in Nestle’s recipe for the cookie, I worked it out by trial and error – basically I had enough of each to get me to one cup and I didn’t want to run out to the store.

    Now its just me, but I like to use cake flour instead of all purpose. I think you get a better mouthfeel from the cookie, but that’s just me.

  38. 38.

    Gin & Tonic

    @efgoldman: A key to that recipe is to let the mixed dough sit for at least 12, preferably 24 hours before baking. If I’m not mistaken, this was tested and verified by the NYTimes cooking section some years back. I do that routinely now, and the cookies are indeed better.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @divF: Try it. If you don’t like it you can always go back the next time. I can tell you that this recipe has a fair amount of tolerance. I’ve run short of sugar and only used a cup before and never had too much issue with how they turned out.

  40. 40.

    opiejeanne

    I’ll have to try the brownie recipe; it sounds delicious. I always make the Lora Brody recipe from “Growing Up on the Chocolate Diet”. They are very good, and while I never thought of icing a brownie before that recipe I can not imagine making that recipe without the coffee/chocolate icing, which is more of a glaze. I’m sorry that I can’t post a link to the recipe online, it doesn’t seem to be available, and I’m not at home so I can’t copy it out of the cookbook. :-(

  43. 43.

    NotMax

    Mentioning Daniel Day-Lewis a bit above reminded me that, what with the spate of movies based on comic books, always thought he would be spot on cast as The Sub-Mariner.

  48. 48.

    ThresherK

    If anyone has any good suggestions, I’m still looking for the chewy chocolate brownie recipe of my dreams. (Well, my wife’s dreams too.)

    The flavor is easy to hit; the texture not so much. And I’m still unsold on the great butter v. veg oil quesiton for this; both have their adherents.

  50. 50.

    benw

    @NotMax: wow, a Sub-Mariner mention! I’ve got a pile of Namor, the Sub-Mariner issues from the 90’s boxed up somewhere. DDL would be fine as an old Namor, but if you wanted to go younger, I think Channing Tatum would be good.

  53. 53.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: I use Kosher salt. I find that with the brown sugar mixed 1/2 light and 1/2 dark, it works well.

    And it doesn’t surprise me that Nestle didn’t get the actual recipe.

  54. 54.

    redshirt

    @benw: Namor won’t be touched until the F4 revert to Marvel proper.

    It’s all trash under Fox.

    The fact that Dr. Doom is a joke rather then the best villain in cinema is proof of this.

  58. 58.

    Mike J

    @Betty Cracker: Baking Show or Bake Off? Baking Show is after they sold it to PBS and on;y have series 4 and 5. If that;s all you’ve got, fire up your torrent client and get the other series.

  59. 59.

    delk

    The Palmer House lobby has been my ‘need to kill time while in the loop’ spot for years. The hotel wifi is locked down, but you can get the free Starbucks wifi from the first floor.

    I fractured my spine earlier this year. The Palmer House was halfway between my PT and my house. Perfect spot to catch my breath on my way home.

  60. 60.

    benw

    @redshirt: I don’t follow the “politics” of the Marvel movies, so I’ll take your word. I liked the first few X-Men movies, and thought the Raimi Spider-Mans were a mix of good and bad. I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t seen any of the Marvel universe movies since Iron Man. My kids have been watching the animated Spider-Man show, and Dr. Doom is actually a pretty good villain in that.

  62. 62.

    Anoniminous

    Cake flour is easy to make: put two tablespoons of cornstarch in a cup measure, fill the rest of the cup with all purpose flour.

    Ta-dah!

    Adding the cornstarch “softens” and “tenderizes” the protein in the flour and reduces the wheat protein by – you guessed it – two tablespoons per cup thus from 10 – 12% to 7-8%.

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    @benw: The last X-Man movie, Day’s of Future Past was good. They did take some liberties with the story, and apparently the 9 minutes they cut that involved Anna Paquin as Rogue changed the plot line. But overall it was quite enjoyable. As was the second Wolverine stand alone movie. I was never a Fantastic Four fan, so I never saw the newest one that was, apparently, a disaster.

    The real problem is also in Marvel trying to negotiate rights back on The Hulk. They’ve been able to do it for The Avengers and a cameo of Bruce Banner at the end of Iron Man 3, but that’s it so far. Its one of the major obstacles to doing a new stand alone or setting The Hulk up for a two to three movie arc. Start with World War Hulk and then move into Planet Hulk.

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @ThresherK: The worst that happens is that you decide this isn’t the brownie for you and you take them into the office and everyone you work with thinks you’re the best person ever.

  65. 65.

    PurpleGirl

    @ThresherK: My mother started baking late in life. One time she was intending in making a chocolate cake using a box mix. Don’t know what went wrong but the result was the best chewy, moist fudgy brownies evar. But she she couldn’t duplicate it because she couldn’t think of what she added or left out from the box mix. Sigh.

  68. 68.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @Adam L Silverman: Well, I do have a reputation as That Guy Who Bakes for every office function, so this couldn’t hurt. The bacon maple cupcakes were a hit at the parties Xmas and.today.

    @PurpleGirl: Sounds like what my mom would do, but without the happy accident.

  69. 69.

    Adam L Silverman

    @benw: So funny Hulk story: the latrines at our FOB were put up by KBR and maintained by them. Aside from the fact that they didn’t get u joints for the plumbing to keep the ammonia from backing back up into the modified single wides housing the toilets (using the latrine after about 9 AM when the temps got above 110 risked death by heated ammonia poisoning), the locks and latches on the stall doors were crap and routinely broke. They were also too small for most to slide under the door or try to crawl over it. I managed to have two different locks on two different stall doors break on me while I was inside. This required me to break the doors down from the inside. As a result the joke around the headquarters was that I should be referred to as The Hulk. When then MG Austin (now GEN Austin CENTCOM Commander) came down for a briefing between the brigade crest on my name placard and my name they’d added an image of The Incredible Hulk someone had down loaded from the Internet. I still have that name placard. And those stall doors were quite sturdy. Took a good deal of punishment, but I was not going to be trapped in the latrine until someone just happened along. Though after the second time we had a protocol on my team that if I wasn’t back in 20 minutes someone was to come looking for me and bring a screw driver!

  70. 70.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @Adam L Silverman: Didn’t KBR get their start selling weevil-infested food and moth-ridden will end to the Union Army? There’s very little I wouldn’t believe they’re capable of.

  72. 72.

    Adam L Silverman

    @ThresherK (GPad): The guy’s on our FOB were okay. But we had a good headquarters and headquarters command (HHC) company riding them. The biggest problem we had, aside from the previous brigade building the FOB in the middle of nowhere on the impact area from the old Iraqi Army artillery range (always nice to live on top of bits of depleted uranium and other unpleasant stuff – I’ve got an entire set of inserts in my medical file) and the genius who authorized using grey water (non-potable, but supposedly treated enough to be safe in the showers and sinks in the latrines – also have an entire set of inserts in my medical file…), was the fact that our dining facility had been recalled from storage in Kuwait. What was it doing in storage in Kuwait you ask? It was waiting to be destroyed because its construction was so inferior that it had been deemed a health hazard. And my GI doc wondered why my intestinal flora was so messed up.

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    @benw: fuschia. Its very trendy!

    When I was seven or eight I went as The Incredible Hulk from the TV show for Halloween. This made sense as I was much bigger than all the other kids in my class, and several grades above mine too. My folks debated how to get me green and the decision was to go with cold cream that had green food coloring mixed in. They reckoned it would wash out easier than simply having me bathe in a tub full of green food coloring. I can’t speak to how easily or hard the latter washes off, but I can say I was green for several days. One of the two best Halloween costumes I had as a kid. The other was when I was five: my Mom did a bang up job making me a Captain Marvel costume based on the TV show. It wasn’t Alex Ross’s work <http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/8/84479/1641907-shazam2.jpg>, but she did a good job nonetheless.

  74. 74.

    ruemara

    Motion graphics. days of work for 15 seconds, that you look at go “meh” and start over from scratch. I need money for the next project so I can pay people to do this shit.

  76. 76.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @efgoldman: She leaves out the salt? I always thought that’s what makes chocolate chip cookies so good: the contrast between salty-sweet dough and bittersweet chocolate. Does the baking soda alone provide enough saltiness? Or does she use salted butter?

  77. 77.

    Redshift

    @redshirt: I seem to remember seeing a big chart of who had the rights to the various Marvel characters, and Namor (and only Namor) is owned by a completely different studio. (Sony, maybe?) All the others are in clusters owned by various studios.

  78. 78.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: No, the idea is that the dark brown sugar will provide it. I’ll post my version of the recipe later in the week. This’ll give you the choice of following it and including the salt or leaving it out and seeing if you prefer it that way.

  80. 80.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Redshift: Fox owns all the mutants. This is why they had to reclassify Scarlet Witch and Quick Silver in Age of Ultron as “wonders”. Fox also has the rights to the FF stuff. Universal holds some of the rights to The Hulk, specifically distribution, along with Marvel/Disney owning the rights to produce the film. And Sony had the film rights to Spider-man and now has partial rights as they struck an agreement to bring Spider-man back into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. According to Kevin Feige in 2014 Marvel owns the rights to Namor, who was their actual first superhero, but there are still some outstanding complications. Feige didn’t elaborate and no one outside of Marvel/Disney seems to know. The reason that Marvel/Disney is playing up the Inhumans on both TV and in the MCU and downplaying the merchandising of the X-Men and Fantastic Four is partially a result of the contentious relationship with Fox. Marvel/Disney wants everything back and under their control, but they haven’t found a way to get out of the agreement with Fox. Or with Sony. Though given how bad Sony did with the last FF movie, that may have taken care of itself.

  81. 81.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Its an easy prep. I like to let the cookie dough rest in the fridge before I make the cookies. I’ve also rolled the dough out into logs, wrapped them in parchment paper and then aluminum foil, and let the dough sit overnight as well. The only thing you don’t want to do, unless you want the cookies to be more like crisps (which still taste amazing), is sheet the cookies if the dough is room temperature. Had to make a double batch back in November and it was quite warm here and the kitchen was quite hot from the oven and they came out very flat. Ooey gooey, but flat.

  82. 82.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Betty Cracker:

    To me, the great brownie controversy is cakey vs. dense. Both are acceptable, but I prefer dense.

    I’m a cakey gal myself. To wit:

    1/2 C butter
    4 oz dark chocolate
    1 C sugar
    1 t vanilla
    2 eggs
    3/4 C flour
    1/4 t baking powder
    1/2 C chopped walnuts

    Melt the butter and chocolate; remove from heat. Stir in sugar. Blend in eggs one at a time. Add vanilla, then flour and baking powder, then nuts. Spread in a buttered 8×8 pan and bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Do not overbake. Cool before cutting.

    Quite a different style from Adam’s. These don’t store well, or ship at all, but I’ve never seen them last long enough for storage to be an issue.

  84. 84.

    Ken

    @Adam L Silverman: Sounds like Rick Raphael’s “Make Mine Homogenized”, where the cows and chickens at a farm near the Nevada proving grounds start producing rather unusual milk and eggs.

  87. 87.

    seaboogie

    I stayed at The Palmer House once – in the tiniest, most luxurious hotel room I’ve ever enjoyed – was totes willing to move into that small space on a permanent basis.

  89. 89.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Brownies without walnuts is like an ocean without fish. It’s wet but somethings missing.

  92. 92.

    Juju

    I don’t like the flavor of walnuts that have been baked. To me, they taste musty. If I use nuts for baking I use pecans. I think pecans bake better, but that’s probably just me.

  93. 93.

    Satby

    My grandmother made perfect Toll House cookies using 1/2 butter and 1/2 shortening as well as the light and dark sugar mix. I still make them the same way, I really hate flat cookies.

  95. 95.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Why don’t you just change your surname to Sugarman? It’s be a fuck of a lot more appropriate. I can’t scroll by one of your sucrose&starch-sopping “food” diaries without going into insulin shock.

    And “Food Goddess TaMara” ain’t a whole heluva lot better. What are you people, trying to kill off half the progressives in the country by feeding them into fulminating diabetes???

  97. 97.

    karen marie

    I am delighted that my grandmother’s recipe is so close to the original. She was born in 1900. This recipe is the first that I made on my own. They are the only brownies I allow past my lips.

    2 cups sugar
    4 eggs
    4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
    1/4 pound butter
    1 cup flour
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    Shit ton chopped walnuts (at least one cup)

    Preheat oven to 350F.

    Line 9×13 pan with waxed paper.

    Melt chocolate/butter in the microwave.

    Beat together sugar and eggs. Add melted chocolate/butter and vanilla. Mix in flour, then nuts. Pour into pan and bake for 30 minutes, till toothpick comes out close to clean. Don’t overbake. Allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing and cutting.

Comments are closed.