National Blonde Brownie Day on January 22 recognizes a treat often referred to as blondies.
Blonde brownies are similar to the traditional brownies known almost everyone. In place of cocoa, brown sugar is used, giving it a sweet-tooth-satisfying molasses flavor!
Most people like to add white chocolate or chocolate chips to their blonde brownies or other things like nuts, toffee or butterscotch. Blonde brownies are usually prepared unfrosted as the brown sugar flavor tends to be sweet enough. These blondies are sometimes served in sundaes, often topped with caramel sauce.
There is no found documentation of the beginning of National Blonde Brownie day. It is known, however, that this light-colored treat was actually invented in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Recipes for blonde brownies can be found in recipe books dating back into the 1940s and maybe even earlier. [As you’ll note below, there is conflicting information].
- The first brownie made was not actually a brownie at all. It was a tasty treat sweetened with molasses that we now know as a blondie.
- The first brownie ever made, like other culinary mishaps (the sandwich, pizza, potato chip) was actually a mistake. The baker didn’t have baking powder and ended up with an unleavened fudgy treat.
- Although cannabis is the most controversial brownie mix-in, walnut remains the most popular and legal.
- The largest brownie ever made was at the Hudson Valley Chocolate Festival and Holiday Crafts Show in Suffern, New York, in Late 2001. Using 750 lbs. of melted chocolate chips the mammoth brownie weighted in at 3,000 lbs.
- Brownie points in modern usage are a hypothetical social currency, which can be accrued by doing good deeds or earning favor in the eyes of another- often one’s superior. The origin of the term is unclear.
- The first time that the brownies were mentioned in a publication was in the 1897 edition of the Sears Roebuck catalog.
- The first brownie recipe published in a cookbook was in the 1906 edition of Cooking School cookbook in Boston.
- According to old cookbooks the blondie came into being long before the brownie – which only became prevalent once cocoa / chocolate became widely available.
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