Fannie Merritt Farmer may have been the first to publish a brownie recipe in a cookbook, see the recipe, below, taken from her 1906 edition of the Boston Cooking School Cook Book. The brownies could have been fashioned after Mrs. Palmer’s brownies, whose chef at her hotel, at her request, invented the recipe for the 1893 World’s Fair. What was the chef’s name? Inquiring minds. You can still taste the brownies from the hotel today!
Brownies from The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, 1906
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
1 egg, unbeaten
2 squares Baker’s chocolate, melted
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup walnut meats, cut in pieces
Mix ingredients in order given. Line a seven-inch square pan with paraffine paper. Spread mixture evenly in pan and bake in slow oven. As soon as taken from oven turn from pan, remove paper, and cut cake in strips, using a sharp knife. If these directions are not followed, paper will cling to cake, and it will be impossible to cut it in shapely pieces.
