National Brownies Day is celebrated on December 8 every year. The brownies are a type of chocolate cake cut into squares, named after their brown color. The chocolate cake from which the brownies are cut is very low and thick, and is often filled with nuts (especially walnuts), chocolate chips or peanut butter.
The homeland of the brownies is the United States and they usually serve them with ice cream or whipped cream.
There is an urban legend that tells that the cookies were accidentally invented by a scattered cook who forgot to add to the chocolate cake he made baking powder. This story has no evidence.
Another version says that the cookies were invented in 1893, during the Chicago World Expo in Chicago at the Palmer House Hotel.
The hotel owner's wife, Bertha Palmer, asked the hotel's pastry chef to make a suitable dessert for the women who attended the show that would be small enough to fit in lunch boxes or low and small that they could eat with a napkin without getting dirty. The result was the Palmer House brownies with walnuts on top and apricot glaze.
Today the modern Palmer House Hotel serves the brownies as a dessert to its guests made from the same recipe and to this day it is one of the hotel's most beloved desserts. The original recipe of the Palmer House.
The brownies were first mentioned by name in the The 1897 Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog.
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| 1897 Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue - page 16 (link) |
The brownies have a golden version - the blondies that have a special day on January 22nd.
In 1907 a new recipe for the brownies appeared in the Lowney's Cook Book, by Maria Willet Howard who adapted the recipe of the Boston School of Cooking for "Bangor's Brownies." She added more egg and more chocolate to the recipe and created a richer dessert. Her recipe is named after the town of Bangor in the state of Maine which was the birthplace of the housewife who claimed to have invented the original recipe of the brownies.
The claim that the housewife from Bangor was the inventor of the brownies was refuted in "The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink" which states that there are cookbooks from 1904 that already included a recipe for brownies identical to Bangor's brownies.
Cool fact - the brownie fairy is a little dwarf that appears in British folklore, who comes home at night and performs household chores if the household members left him a bowl of milk or cream on the fireplace.
How to celebrate National Brownies Day?
There are so many brownie recipes, that it's not a problem to find a recipe for making brownies at any level of preparation and with any ingredient you fancy. Make classic brownies or with crazy ingredients like candies, pretzel chips, salty snacks or whatever you want to try and vary. Give to friends, neighbors or family and do not eliminate everything alone!
Post your brownies photos and recipes on social media with the hashtag #browniesday
December 8 is also Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day
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