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Family Favourite Brownie Recipe

From the Allen/Valpy home to yours!

Jan 4, 2008 Mary Luz Mejia

Chocolatey, chewy and infinitely delicious, brownies are the kind of childhood treat that appeal to the kid in almost everyone!

“There’s this famous recipe in our family - it’s my mum’s brownie recipe,” says Leslie Valpy one day across the office from yours truly’s desk. A bit more prodding and Leslie says that her grandmother (who was English but spent most of her adult life in Jamaica) made these on special occasions, especially when grandchildren were coming over for a visit to their favourite granny’s house. Grandmother Peggie Allen passed on the chocolately delicious treat to her daughter, Amanda Valpy who according to Amanda’s daughter Leslie, is her mum’s bookclub members' favourite.

These brownies aren’t too sweet, but sweet and choco-licious enough to please most any palate. Perfect with a good cup of coffee, tea or old school glass of icy cold milk. “My mum would buy up loads of Bakers Chocolate boxes from here to bring to my grandmother in Jamaica because you couldn’t get them there. The chocolate would almost always be used in making these brownies,” says Leslie.

Now for you food historians out there, there are as many versions of where the humble brownie comes from than there are recipes for this beloved dense cake square. One of this writer’s favourite explanations is the following: "The original brownies had no leavening, except for an egg or two, and little flour, but were so rich with butter and melted chocolate that they baked up softer than other cookies...Fannie Merrit Farmer's first brownie recipe, published in 1896, produced a confection that was colored and flavored with molasses. Each brownie had a nut placed at its center. All early brownies contained chopped nuts as well...The first chocolate brownie recipe was...published by Fannie Farmer in her 1905 revision of the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. " (Source: The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1).

So here, without further ado is the beloved family recipe that the Allen/Valpy family has enjoyed for decades. Recipe courtesy of Peggie Allen by way of her daughter Amanda Valpy and this writer’s work colleague (and partner in crime at the “At the Table With…” production offices), Leslie Valpy. Enjoy!

Brownie Recipe

Ingredients:

2 squares semi-sweet chocolate 1/8 tsp salt
¼ cup butter
½ cup flour
1 cup sugar
½ cup chopped walnuts
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Method:

Melt the butter and the chocolate together on the stove top.
Remove from heat.
Add sugar, eggs (mixed but not beaten), salt, flour, nuts, vanilla.
Spread in a greased 7” pan.
Cook 50 minutes in slow oven (300 F).

The copyright of the article Family Favourite Brownie Recipe in Food Trends is owned by Mary Luz Mejia. Permission to republish Family Favourite Brownie Recipe in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.