17 Comfort Foods For Deep Winter

SOUTH PORTLAND, ME – DECEMBER, 2: Peanut butter brownie, left and mint brownies, right, at Foley’s Bakery in Portland Friday, December 2, 2016. (Photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)

16. Brownies

I really, honestly thought that brownies were older than they really are. True, European cooks didn’t get hold of chocolate until the 16th century. Thereafter, they spent many years getting used to it and putting chocolate into unsweetened concoctions. Jesuit missionary Jose de Acosta, who worked in Peru and Mexico in the late 16th century, said that chocolate was “loathsome to such as are not acquainted with it.”

So, chocolate had a bit of a rough start, at least once it made its way across the Atlantic Ocean. Brownies themselves weren’t first made until sometime in the late 19th century. The first printed reference to a dessert called a “brownie” appeared in an 1896 edition of the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, by Fannie Farmer.

If you’ve ventured into the world of brownie baking – and who hasn’t, at one time or another? – then you know that there are many, many variations on the core concept. Should you make a fudgy brownie, thick and dense with chocolate? Should you make a cake-like one, with more fluff and a pronounced crumb? While we’re at it, do you want to grab a center piece, or will you fight your own family for a chance to get a corner slice instead?

I’ll let you decide the answers to such weighty questions on your own. At least experimenting with different recipes yields some sort of delicious chocolatey goop.

Recipe: My Favorite Brownies (Smitten Kitchen)

Healthier variation: 13 Bomb-Ass Healthy Brownie Recipes (Greatist)