Chocolate Brownies

Here is another way to overeat and love it. Plain old chocolate brownies from my disintegrating 1948 cookbook continue to be the ones I like best. One of my daughters has requested the recipe, so here it is with my adaptations, from The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, by Fannie Merritt Farmer, 1948 edition.

Chocolate Brownies

7-inch square pan – double this for 9-inch square pan

2 squares (2 ounces) unsweetened chocolate            1/8 teaspoon salt

¼ cup butter                                                                ½ cup all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar                                                                 1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs                                                              ½ cup cut walnut meats (optional)

Melt chocolate over hot water in 2 quart saucepan. Remove from heat. Add butter and stir until melted. Add sugar, eggs, salt and vanilla and mix together. Add flour and optional nuts. Grease the baking pan and spread the mixture evenly in it. Bake about 50 minutes at 300 degrees. When cool cut in squares.

The book says to line the pan with heavy waxed paper, which I have never done. It’s easy to grease the pan.