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Fudge Squares
3 tablespoons shortening 1 cup sugar 1 egg 2 squares unsweetened chocolate 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1/3 cup milk 1 cup flour 1 teaspoon Royal Baking Powder 1/2 cup nut meats chopped-not too fine Melt shortening; add sugar and unbeaten egg; mix well; add chocolate which has been melted; vanilla and milk; add flour which has been sifted with the baking powder; add nut meats, mix well. Spread very thinly on greased shallow cake pan, and bake in slow oven from 20 to 30 minutes. Cut into 2-inch squares before removing from pan.
A plain brownie batter from a baking-powder company pamphlet, leavened rather than fudgy. The critical instruction is in the word "thinly" — this batter is meant to bake as a thin sheet, not a deep pan of brownies.
- Slow ovenBake at 300–325F. At that temperature a thin sheet takes the full 20 to 30 minutes; check at 20, when the surface is set and dry and the edges have just begun to pull away.
- Pan sizeNo pan size is given, only a "shallow cake pan." Spread the batter about 1/4 inch thick — a 9x13-inch sheet pan is right for this quantity. In an 8x8 pan the batter is roughly twice as deep and will need longer, giving a cakier result than intended.
- ShorteningIn early twentieth-century American baking this means a solid vegetable fat such as Crisco, or lard. Melted unsalted butter works and tastes better; add a pinch of salt, since the recipe includes none and modern shortening is unsalted.
- Squares of chocolateAn unsweetened baking square is 1 ounce, so use 2 ounces of 100% unsweetened chocolate. Bittersweet is not a substitute here without cutting the sugar.
- Baking powderRoyal was a cream-of-tartar single-acting powder, which released most of its gas on mixing rather than in the oven. With modern double-acting powder you may want a slightly lighter hand — around 3/4 teaspoon — and the batter should go into the oven promptly either way.
- Unbeaten eggAdding the egg whole into melted fat and sugar, without beating, keeps aeration low — the leavening comes from the baking powder. Do not whip the mixture or the squares turn spongy.
- CuttingCut into 2-inch squares before lifting anything out of the pan, as directed; scoring while the sheet is still warm is easiest, then let it cool in the pan before removing the pieces. Cold, they crack along the cut.
- YieldBaked as a thin sheet in a 9x13 pan, about 24 two-inch squares.
This comes from one of the recipe booklets the Royal Baking Powder Company distributed free to American households — publications that were advertising first and cookbook second, which is why the brand name appears in the ingredient list rather than the generic term. The name is worth noticing: "fudge" in the title signals chocolate and sweetness, but the recipe is chemically leavened and baked thin, closer to a chocolate cookie bar than to the dense brownie the word suggests today. Bar cookies of this kind spread quickly in the early twentieth century — the reasons are often traced to the convenience of one-pan, cut-and-serve baking, though that is more a familiar narrative than a documented one — and unsweetened baking chocolate, sold by Baker's and others, made chocolate baking at home cheap and routine.