Know Your Brownie: A Dessert You Can't Stop Dreaming About

Are you someone who dreams of decadent brownies every night? Know that you are not alone. Although first created in the US, brownies have legions of fans across the world.

There are many stories around the first recipe for brownies. One particularly popular version credits the creation to a homemaker in Maine who forgot to add baking powder to her chocolate cake recipe. The cake didn’t rise—she cut the cake into square-shaped pieces and served them.

According to gourmet food magazine The Nibble, “the first chocolate brownie recipe was published by one of America’s most famous cookbook authors, Fannie Merritt Farmer, in 1906.”

The traditional recipe was made more decadent and rich by Maria Willet Howard who added an extra egg and extra chocolate. These brownies came to be known as Bangor brownies. 

Fudge or cake-like?

Brownies can be both fudgy and cake-like. The classic brownie is made of butter, sugar, chocolate, flour and eggs. Fudge brownies do not contain baking powder and use minimum amount of flour. Cake-like brownies, on the other hand, use quite a bit of flour and a little baking powder as well. To make a fudge brownie, you must melt the butter and not cream it. For a cake-like brownie, you need to cream the butter with sugar—as a result, these brownies tend to rise.

If you don’t want your brownies to taste too sweet, unsweetened chocolate is a better bet than regular chocolate. There are brownies that are made without chocolate and are known as ‘blondies’. They use brown sugar, which lends them a unique flavour and colour.

Bake at home

You can bake your favourite brownies at home. You can make them from scratch or get a brownie mix that makes the job easier for you. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream to your chocolate brownie to make it extra delicious.