Each year on December 8, brownie lovers across the nation enjoy one of their favorite baked goods on National Brownie Day.
- In the United States, the chocolate brownie is a favorite, with the blonde brownie running a close second. A blonde brownie is made with brown sugar and no chocolate and is often called a blondie.
- The earliest recipes for brownies we are familiar with today are found published in regional cookbooks and newspapers around the turn of the last century.
- The 1904 Laconia, NH Home Cookery,
- the 1904 Chicago, IL Service Club Cook Book,
- April 2, 1905, edition of The Boston Globe are three early examples.
- In 1906, Fannie Merritt Farmer published a recipe in an edition of The Boston Cooking School Cook Book.
- Three myths have gained popularity over the years regarding the creation of the brownie:
- In an accidental mixing of ingredients, a chef added melted chocolate to biscuit dough.
- A forgetful cook left out the flour when mixing the batter.
- When a housewife did not have baking powder, she improvised to create this new treat. The wife decided to serve her guest flattened cakes.
- Bertha Palmer, a prominent Chicago socialite whose husband owned the Palmer House Hotel. In 1893 Palmer asked a pastry chef for a dessert suitable for ladies attending the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. She requested a cake-like confection smaller than a piece of cake that could be included in boxed lunches. The result was the Palmer House Brownie with walnuts and an apricot glaze. The desserts were a hit, but they weren’t called brownies.
- 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.
- Although cannabis is the most controversial brownie mix-in, walnut remains the most popular and legal.
- 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.
- Did you know there’s also a mythical creature called a “brownie”? Brownies are tiny, fanciful, good-natured elves who secretly help out and do good deeds at night.
- No one knows for sure where the name “brownie” came from. Some say it was from a children’s book. Eventually the term came to describe Girl Scouts, a Kodak camera, and the tasty treat.
- It wasn’t until the 1920s that brownies became a darling in the department of baked chocolate treats, and it never ceased.
- The National Brownie Committee of America reports that Americans consume approximately 1,457,966,002 brownies a year.
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