A Proper Dessert

When you think of fair food, you probably don’t think of a slice of cake. However, it was the first thing socialite Bertha Palmer thought of.

As chair of the Exposition’s Board of Lady Managers, she asked her pastry chef at the Palmer Hotel to create a small cake-like dessert for the boxed lunches distributed at the Women’s Building. 

In response, pastry chef Joseph Sehl created a proto-brownie that the Palmer Hotel still serves today. Dense and fudgy — courtesy of eight eggs — Sehl’s “chocolate bar” wasn’t as sweet as modern brownies despite being topped with an apricot glaze.

Of course, like many items mentioned previously, Sehl’s treat wasn’t originally called a brownie. It doesn’t seem to have had any name at all. Regardless, it was extremely popular. This is likely why similar recipes popped up in 1896 and 1897.

The first “brownie” recipes appeared in Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book and, oddly, the Sears & Roebuck catalog. The former made something more akin to a cookie, while the latter’s result fell somewhere between cakey and chewy.

There’s an unsubstantiated rumor that Sears recipe was developed by a man named Knapp, who worked under Sehl at the Parker. While that could be true, it could also be something whipped up by proud Chicagoans who wanted to claim both the unofficial and official brownies as their own.

The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets takes a dim view of the Parker story. Still, contemporary magazines cite Joseph Sehl as the brownie’s creator and have published his recipe, which can also be found on the hotel’s website. 

Interestingly enough, the brownie name was inspired by author and illustrator Palmer Cox’s popular sprite characters, The Brownies, which first appeared in 1883. The Brownies had an enormous cultural impact at the time, inspiring the names of the Girl Scouts’ junior division and Eastman Kodak’s portable film camera.

Bringing this all full circle, The Brownies visited the Fair in the 1892 story “The Brownies In September.” They came to Chicago to assist with the construction and were disappointed that the Women’s Building had already been completed. It’s too bad they didn’t stick around for dessert.