A Vintage Recipe / Kelli Huggins

Mrs. Kenneth Kelly of Delaware County’s hamlet of Bedell won the second week of the Catskill Mountain News’ Brer Rabbit Molasses contest.

Her brownie recipe, however, is unlike the brownies we are accustomed to now. There is no chocolate! Instead, these come out tasting like a rich molasses cookie, but with a brownie texture. They were a big hit in my house [1].

This recipe is based on a local winning entry in the Brer Rabbit Molasses recipe contest in the fall of 1939. For more information on that contest and for another molasses recipe, molasses ginger cookies, see the Winter 2020 edition of Catskills Magazine.

The recipe took very little modification from its original form to translate it for modern kitchens. So dig back in your pantry and find that jar of molasses you probably bought a long time ago and forgot and get baking.

Molasses Brownies

⅓ cup vegetable shortening (like Crisco)
⅓ cup sugar
⅓ cup molasses
1 egg
1 ¼ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
⅓ tsp baking soda
½ cup chopped nuts, if desired

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. 

Cream the shortening, sugar, and molasses. Add the beaten egg and combine thoroughly.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Add the nuts until combined, but don’t over mix.

Grease a muffin tin and divide the mixture evenly into 12 portions. Bake for 10 minutes. 

-KH

Notes

[1] “Bedell Cook Wins First Prize,” Catskill Mountain News, November 10, 1939, 1.