Home › Cookies and Small Cakes › Brownies
Brownies
2 squares chocolate 1/4 cup fat 1 cup white sugar 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup nuts Melt chocolate and add it to the melted fat. Add sugar, egg, salt and flour. Mix in chopped nuts, pour in greased baking-pans, and bake at 360 degrees F. about twenty-five minutes. They will look half baked, but mark off in squares or strips when you take them from the oven, and they will harden as they cool. Remove from the pans when cool. Serve with afternoon tea. These cookies resemble fudge in taste and appearance.
A lean, early version of the brownie: no leavening, no vanilla, and a batter stiff enough to be stirred by hand in one bowl. The instruction that matters is the one about pulling them out looking underdone.
- Squares of chocolateA "square" is a 1-ounce block of unsweetened baking chocolate, so this is 2 ounces total. Do not substitute semisweet or chocolate chips; with a full cup of sugar the result would be cloying.
- FatThe recipe simply says "fat," leaving the choice of butter, lard, or vegetable shortening open. Butter gives the best flavour here; 1/4 cup is 4 tablespoons.
- Oven temperature360F is an oddly precise figure. Set a modern oven to 350F and check at 20 minutes.
- Pan sizeThe recipe says "baking-pans" without a size. This is a small quantity of batter; one 8-inch square pan gives thin bars, and a 9-inch pan thinner and drier ones still.
- The hinge: pull them earlyThey are meant to leave the oven with a soft, barely-set centre and firm up as they cool. A toothpick will not come out clean and should not. Baking until it does produces something closer to chocolate cake.
- CuttingScore the surface into squares or strips while the pan is still hot, then let it cool completely before lifting the pieces out. Cutting a warm pan through drags the soft centre.
- NutsHalf a cup, chopped; the recipe does not say which kind. Toasting them first improves the flavour.
- YieldAbout sixteen 2-inch squares from an 8-inch pan.