Chocolate-Date Brownie Bars
Photo Credit : Michael PiazzaMrs. Edna M. Lorimer of Haverhill, Massachusetts, won $3—a second-place finish—for these delicious chocolate-date brownie bars in Yankee’s June 1949 reader recipe contest. At the time, dates were still a novel and exotic ingredient, having first been grown commercially in the 1920s—and we love how they add caramel flavor and extra chewiness to the classic bars.
Find more recipes for “Cookies Through the Decades.”
Ingredients
1 stick (8 tablespoons) salted butter, plus more for pan
2 squares (2 ounces) unsweetened baking chocolate
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 cup finely chopped, pitted dates
Confectioners’ sugar (for dusting)
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350° and set a rack to the center position. Line an 8×8-inch (or 9×9-inch) square baking pan with aluminum foil, making the sheets long enough to drape over the sides (to make it easier to remove the bars later). Grease the foil with butter.
Set up a double boiler and bring the water to a simmer. Put the chocolate and butter in the top and stir until melted. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring well after each. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, and dates, and stir to combine.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake, rotating pan halfway through, until the brownies are just beginning to pull away from the sides and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 35 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of the pan. Cool the brownies in the pan 20 minutes; then lift the foil to remove. When warm, dust with confectioners’ sugar, cut into squares, and serve.
Amy Traverso
Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee magazine and co-host of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with WGBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.
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