I hooked up with a local townie that summer of '78 by the name of Annie Brackett. Our relationship was short and filled with passion until I realized that her pa was the law around Haddonfield; this young stud backed off that right quick, yes sirree bob!
That young filly she did like her ganja though. So one fine evening in early August we made ourselves some brownie fudge.
Here is the scene that inspired the recipe!
Now most people don't know this but brownies were actually first produced at the Palmer Hotel in Chicago Illinois in the year 1893. I worked there as a dishwasher in the summer of '76 and stumbled upon the recipe. Now mine is fairly faithful to the Palmer Brownie but I vary it a little bit to my tastes, mainly putting in less butter and using more walnuts. To see the traditional Palmer house recipe go here.
For the topping I use a fresh fruit puree instead of a glaze of jam and gelatin, like the original does. This recipe is more like a piece of fudge than today's typical brownie. It's delicious all the same.
Annie scoffed at me at first, thinking her brownies were better than mine. But I showed her what's what.
Now just like every recipe for anything chocolaty you start out on the double boiler and melt the chocolate with a whole mess of better. While that's going on you mix the dry ingredients together and you whisk up some eggs. Then you mix the wet with the dry and slowly add the eggs. Annie added a heaping helping of her special hippie blend stink weed, and I topped it off with some walnuts.
Now while that was in the oven I made the topping. Fruit, water, sugar, citrus and let it boil down some. Remove from the heat for a spell and add the gelatin and bring the whole thing to a boil again. Then blend it up.
When the brownies come out they aren't like most brownies. They're like fudge. They're gooey. So you put the topping on top and then you freeze it.
While the brownies were freezing me and Annie knocked boots for the very last time.
When we were done she tried my fudge, and she admitted that mine was superior to anything she could conjure up. Our departure was melancholic, but it did have a sweet note at the end of it, and the swag high softened the blow of the break-up.
The next time I would hear sweet Annie's voice was on Halloween night where I forced her beau Paul to make that fateful phone call to the Wallace's where Mikey was waiting for her in the garage. Paul happened to be a type one diabetic. I stabbed him with an overdose of insulin and everyone thought it was an accident on a night where regulating blood sugar was difficult indeed. No one was the wiser and my god did it feel good to feel the young stud's life force leave his body, slowly, slowly until dying of the sweet slumber of an insulin shock induced coma. As I savored that moment I thought about the sweet dense fudge brownie that me and Annie had shared. I had a craving for sweets at that moment and took a piece of Halloween candy and scarfed it on down. It was a caramel square. It wasn't the same.
Last Time Brownie Fudge
Yield: 12
Inactive time: 3 hours and 10 minutes
Active time (prep and cook): 55 minutes
Brownie Fudge
Pam Coconut Oil Spray
1 12 oz bag of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
2½ sticks of Butter
1/3 cup bread flour
1¼ cup sugar
6 large eggs
1½ cups slightly crushed walnuts
Stone Fruit Gelatin Topping
4 Peaches
3 Nectarines
1/2-3/4 cup Sugar
Juice from 2 Oranges
2 cups Water
1-2 0.25oz packets Plain Gelatin
Directions
Brownie Fudge
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. Grease a 2 quart or 9x12 inch baking dish with the Pam.
3. Fill the lower compartment of a double boiler with water and place on the stove. Turn up the heat to high.
4. While the water heats up to a boil add the chocolate chips and butter to the upper compartment of the double boiler.
5. Meanwhile mix together the dry ingredients (flour and sugar) in a medium mixing bowl. Set aside.
6. Whisk 6 eggs together in a separate small bowl.
7. When the water is boiling from the lower compartment of the double boiler, lower the heat to medium so that the water is a simmer. Let the ingredients melt stirring occasionally with a spoon until it is of a desirable consistency. It should drip off the spoon and have the consistency that is roughly like paint.
8. Combine the chocolate butter mixture with the dry ingredients initially with a wooden spoon and finish with a electric mixer on high until smooth.
9. Let sit for 10 minutes so that the mixture cools down slightly.
10. Add the whisked eggs slowly into the chocolate mixture while mixing on medium with an electric mixer.
11. Add the mixture to the greased baking dish, bringing everything out with a spatula if necessary.
12. Spread the walnuts on top of the uncooked fudge brownie mixture, tapping into the batter slightly.
13. Cook in oven for 40 minutes. The inside will still be gooey but the outer edges should be cooked brown. The toothpick test will not work here. Again this recipe resembles fudge more than it does today's brownies.
14. Top with the stone fruit gelatin topping. Recipe below.
15. Freeze in the freezer for at least 3 hours.
16. Take out of freezer and carefully cut into 12 squares. Bring out with a small spatula.
Stone Fruit Gelatin Topping
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. Add the peaches and nectarines and blanch for 2 minutes.
3. Take the fruit out of the boiling water with tongs and immediately put into an ice water bath and let them sit for 2 minutes.
4. Peel the fruit. It should come off easily with your fingers.
5. Cut the fruit in half and either crush with your hand or chop coarsely and put into a medium sauce pan.
6. Add the juice of 2 oranges, sugar, and water to the pot and bring to a boil.
7. Reduce heat to medium and simmer uncovered for 15-20 minutes.
8. Add the gelatin and stir vigorously immediately. Cook for another 5-10 minutes.
9. Add the fruit mixture to a blender and blend on low until it is a smooth puree.
10. Put the puree mixture back on the stove and keep warm until ready to put onto the brownie fudge.
Additional Information
This recipe is dense and though the brownie size is for 12 feel free to cut each piece in half or quarters, if you want them to be the size of fudge bites.
Make sure you let the mixture cool some before adding the eggs, otherwise they will scramble inside the chocolate creating an undesirable consistency.
For the gelatin topping use whatever fruit you have on hand. Many varieties will work and you don't need the most high quality of fruit, where they are going to be pureed and mixed with a lot of sugar anyways. The pictures above used some peaches and nectarines that had been bruised and should've been put in the fridge but were not. It was still delicious! Whatever you want your brownie fudge to be will work from raspberries to bananas. Be creative!
To juice the oranges just put them in the microwave for 10-15 seconds per piece of fruit, slice them in half and squeeze into the sauce pan, holding your other hand under the fruit catching all the seeds.
Gelatin can be a hard thing to judge. I've put a packet in before and it seems to do just fine, other times I don't like the consistency and put 2 in. I've also put 2 in and it clumps up in a few places and gets too hard. If that happens just use a strainer to get out all the bad white clumps that might form if you put too much in.
Speaking of gelatin, when using, remember to wash your dishes immediately afterwards or else you will have a very difficult job getting the dried on gelatin off. If this does happen soak in hot water for five minutes or so to help loosen the gel.
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