The Original World's Fair Brownie

 

The brownie was invented at the Palmer House hotel as a portable treat for fairgoers at Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair. Real estate tycoon Potter Palmer, owner of the Palmer House Hotel, was an investor in the World’s Columbian Exposition. His wife Bertha Palmer chaired the Board of Lady Managers for the World’s Columbian Exposition and was in charge of the Women’s Pavilion. Bertha asked the hotel’s pastry chef to make a chocolate cake-like dessert that would be easy to box and transport to the fair, and thus the brownie was born. The portable chocolatey treat was included in box lunches served at the hotel to fairgoers.

Many other new foods were also introduced at the Columbian Exposition, including Quaker Oats, Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix, Cream of Wheat, Shredded Wheat, and Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit and Spearmint Gum. Fairgoers were given a box of Cracker Jack upon entering the grounds. Pabst beer won an award at the fair, which led them to change their name to Pabst Blue Ribbon. And two Austrian-Hungarian brothers-in-law sold homemade beef sausages at a stand in the fair’s “Old Vienna” section. Buoyed by their success there, the brothers would go on to open the Vienna Sausage Company, the brand that would be used in the famous Chicago-style hot dog.

One fairgoer was a gentleman by the name of Milton Hershey. Hershey must have been inspired by the 38-ft. chocolate statue at the fair, because he purchased one of the German chocolate-processing machines on display to take home with him to Pennsylvania to expand his caramel business. Hershey would become the first commercial chocolate maker. Another notable fairgoer was author L. Frank  Baum, who would go on to write The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The White City, an area of the fair that featured majestic buildings with white stucco siding and electric lights, would become the inspiration for Baum’s Emerald City.

The brownie, as it was later called in the Sears Roebuck catalog in 1898, was one of the many successes of the fair. This is the original recipe as provided by the Palmer House Hilton hotel with some notes from me. Other brownie recipes began to appear in cookbooks in the early 1900s. While these later recipes call for butter and sugar to be first creamed and then combined with melted chocolate, this recipe calls for the butter to be melted with the chocolate and then added to the flour and sugar mixture. This recipe also uses a glaze made from apricot preserves and calls for a pound of butter and eight eggs. Holy cow, that’s a lot of butter and eggs.   

The Palmer House Brownie

Yield: About 15 medium-sized brownies

Ingredients:

14 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

1 lb. butter

12 oz. (1 ½ c.) granulated sugar

4 oz. (1/2 c.) flour

8 eggs

12 oz. (1 ½ c.) walnuts

1 tsp. vanilla extract

 For the glaze: 1 c. water

                        1 c. apricot preserves

                        1 tsp. unflavored gelatin

 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease a 9-by-12-inch baking pan and chop walnuts. Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Try not to think about how much butter you’re using. Mix the sugar and flour in a large bowl. Combine the chocolate and flour mixtures. Stir 4 to 5 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and continue mixing. Try not to think about how many eggs you’re adding. Pour mixture into the pan. Sprinkle walnuts on top, pressing down slightly into the mixture with your hand. Bake for 30-40 minutes. Brownies are done when they have risen about ¼ inch and the edges begin to crisp. The center will still remain gooey.

For the glaze, mix together the water, apricot preserves, and gelatin in a saucepan. Mix thoroughly and bring to boil for 2 minutes. Brush hot glaze on brownies while they are still warm. Wait until brownies cool to slice them.

 

Sources:

Ball, Suzanne. “Chicago Columbian Exposition Fair Foods We Still Love.” TravelSmart Woman (August 16, 2017). 

_____. “The Original Brownie Recipe–From Chicago’s Palmer House Hotel,” TravelSmart Woman (September 12, 2018). 

Borden, Maggie. “Food History: The 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago” JamesBeard.org (September 15, 2014).

“Celebrate National Brownie Day—December 8th.” Palmer House Hilton. 

“Fun Facts About the World’s Columbian Exposition,”FieldMuseum.org. 

Gale, Neil. “The First-Ever Brownie Was Invented in Chicago by Bertha Palmer for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.” Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal  (September 14, 2018). 

“Here’s the Recipe for the First-Ever Brownie, Invented in Chicago: It was served by the Palmer House at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.” Chicago Magazine (October 12, 2016). 

“The Invention of a Sweet Confection,” Palmer House Hilton.

Maranzani, Barbara. “Chicago Was Home to a Serial Killer During the 1893 World’s Fair: Check out some surprising facts about the World’s Columbian Exposition.” History.com (August 22, 2018). 

Nagasawa, Katherine, “From Vienna Beef to PBR: Five Food and Drink Legacies of the 1893 World’s Fair.” NPR.org (May 22, 2019). 

“The Palmer House Brownie,” Palmer House Hilton.

Ruzich, Emily. “Sweets in the City.” Forgotten Chicago: Examining Vintage Postcards (February 12, 2021).