I was digging around in my desk the other day when I found an envelope of 3 x 5 recipe cards that my mother had typed up for me when I left home. I’d spent the greater portion of my girlhood in the kitchen baking cookies (and enfattening my family), but once I’d moved out of my parents’ house the cookies never tasted the same, and I couldn’t figure out why Tollhouse cookies made in Brooklyn were never quite as good as ones made in Denver. Was it the altitude?
Ultimately, I realized what I’d done wrong. Once I started grocery shopping for myself I never thought to put a big ol’ tub of Crisco in the cart. It just seemed gross. Plus, on the rare occasion that I did feel like whipping up a batch of oatmeal crispies for the roommates, wouldn’t butter be better? Crisco was one short step away from lard, after all. But then the cookies would come out all flat and burnt and I was never motivated enough to figure out what went wrong, so I just stopped baking cookies.
So then last weekend I opened up the recipe envelope and right in front was this card:
(click to make it larger)
And I knew it was time, for I also had this:
Crisco sticks! Because Crisco’s all about HEALTH, and trans-fats are killing their business, so why partially hydrogenate? When you can sell individually wrapped sticks of FULLY hydrogenated shortening.
(Crisco: the flammable choice!)
And by God, those brownies tasted exactly like they did when I was eight years old. And you know what else? They tasted like shit. You could taste the fake. It was gross. Even Jackson wouldn’t eat them, and you show me a five-year-old who won’t eat a brownie? That brownie must taste like ass.
That’s how much we ate before I threw them in the garbage.
Oh, well.
Butter Flavored Crisco.
You can pretend it’s butter, so it doesn’t seem as gross, and it tastes marvellous.
It’s also great for fried chicken.
I can whip out a perfectly flaky pie crust from scratch. I can conjure up the best disappearing chocolate cake ever. I cannot produce a decent mother@#$%!ing brownie. Not one. It’s a federally declared disaster area every single time.
All I’m saying is, is it even POSSIBLE to make a good brownie? Maybe I’m just challenged in that area
It frightens me how companies are now exclaiming (beyond just claiming) that they’re 100% TRANS FAT FREE, especially when they probably were all along.
Also, what is with the “per serving” qualification? Sneaky lardish buggers.
I just cannot bring myself to buy that stuff. My mother-in-law makes truly awe-inspiring pie crusts with butter-flavored Crisco, but I’ll take my slightly-less-dense-and-perfect butter-made crust any day.
When a kid won’t eat a brownie, you know something’s not right…
Just out of curiosity, where does the Butterscotch come in? Does brown sugar and vanilla blended taste like butterscotch? All about some brownies right about now..Thanks… And love your site.
t.willie — Google “Katharine Hepburn brownies,” they are the bomb. Do not use Crisco in them, though.
crisco scares me a little but i do use it once a year – the best pie crust i’ve ever made uses 1/2 chilled crisco and 1/2 chilled butter. you definitely need the butter for flavor.
ah, yes, ‘partially hydrogenated’ is probably even worse than Splenda! *muah* Although I don’t know about FULLY hydrogenated. That’s what’s in peanut butter, though. As long as it tastes good!
I haven’t used shortening in years, subbing Spectrum Spread when I absolutely had to have some.
I do have a tiny little tub of Crisco, though, which I use for one thing…seasoning cast-iron cookware. There is no substitute.
I’m going to advise t.willie to go with “Beacon Hill Brownies” instead. I believe so strongly that these are the best brownies I’ve gone ahead and included the link.
http://www.recipesource.com/baked-goods/desserts/brownies/01/rec0103.html
People will beg you for this recipe, which may be a bit labor intensive, but is worth every ounce of effort-and calorie.
I was just going to post what amy said. Beacon Hill Brownies are insanely good. I make mine with just 1 C. of Walnuts and add 1 C. of chocolate chips. Super chocolatey bliss. Try them!
She could’ve given a cookbook, or written out the recipes in longhand. To picture a mother inserting little index cards into a typewriter (and even using tabs to enhance the readability) is to see a mom who must really care about how her kid is going to get along when she moves out of the house.
I tried the same thing with butter, and then with the zero trans fat Crisco, but everything tasted weird. I had to use the old full trans fat Crisco, (still packaged in handy to use cubes) to get that old fashioned artery crunchin’ taste.
Now i can’t make the cookies because i can’t make myself buy the Crisco. Yeech.
“Artery crunchin’ taste.” Ha!
And yes, Bill McClusky, my mother is awesome, in this and many other ways.
Sobbing uncontrollably…I can flip past all the news about Lebanon without a flicker of recognition, but bad brownies? Tragedy.
I can’t bring myself to use shortening any more, either. I even use butter in my pie crusts, which makes them harder to work with, but I think they taste better. Shortening is pretty much completely gross. At least you’ve raised Jackson well enough to know what real food tastes like.
Butter flavor Crisco cookies are only good for baking. You can not eat the raw cookie dough because it tastes like the aforementioned ass. Only toll house recipe cookie dough can be eaten raw. But the butter flavor Crisco ones taste better after they are cooked. What’s a girl to do?
That recipe sounded soooo good. I’m a little sad that it tasted like ass.
It might work with butter! Try it!
butterscoth brownies or any blondie variety just doesn’t cut it for me.
also, if you hadn’t posted what this was, i’d guess that it was some sort of jam-filled shortbread.
So what your saying is the real crisco is the only way to go? That recipe looks like it may be good!
Bake with half Crisco and half butter. Just don’t eat it too often.
Spectrum makes an organic shortening that’s non-hydrogenated and trans fat free. It still doesn’t have good flavor though. So, here’s a reeeeally good blondie recipe using butter. Don’t have a link for it, so I’m posting it here:
Toffee Pecan Blondies
2 1/4 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup butter
2 1/4 cups light brown sugar — firmly packed
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup toffee pieces
1 cup pecans — chopped
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 9 x 13-inch baking pan and set aside. In microwave, melt butter.
In medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt;set aside.
In large bowl using electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar. Slowly beat in the eggs, mixing until batter is smooth. On low speed, gradually mix in the flour mixture. Batter will be very stiff. Stir in chocolate chips, toffee, and nuts. Spread the batter in the baking pan, smoothing it into the corners. Bake 25 minutes or until the blondies begin pulling away from the sides of the pan. Let cool to room temperature in the pan on wire rack, then cut into bars.
But they look AMAZING.
i was secretly hoping that the comment about crisco’s flammability was a lead in to a photo of some sort of spectacular brownie inferno.
Mrs. K asks: “…Was it the altitude?” MJ answers: “Probably.”
Maybe because you were a kid at the time, you were unaware that the original Denver recipe might have used the “higher elevation” measurements. If so, it has nothing to do with Crisco – but everything to do with the fact that you’re no longer a mile high (geographically speaking.) I’m just sayin’…
Closer to sea-level, your ingredients may need to be readjusted. Learn more here. Or not
Best Blondies. Ever!
Ingredients
6 oz container vanilla soy yogurt
1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons canola oil
1 cup 2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons molasses
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup choc chips
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 and line an 8×9 brownie pan with parchment paper and set aside (if no parchment is handy, spray w/ non stick cooking spray or brush lightly with margarine or canola oil)
In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt.
In a large bowl combine yogurt, oil, vanilla and molasses. Mix with a wire wisk. Add the sugar and wisk until well combined (about 30 seconds).
In batches, fold the dry ingredients into the wet, slowly, wisking as you go along. Fold in chocolate chips.
Pour batter into the brownie pan, spread with a spoon or spatula. Bake for 30-35 minutes until top is firm and brown.
Let cool completely before serving.
Don’t let it throw you off that they are vegan. They freakin’ rock!
You threw baked goods into the garbage??!?!?
skinny bitch.
Not a fan of blonde brownies, but the best brownies I know come from an old Joy of Cooking floating around my house somewhere. It’s got melted butter and unsweetened chocolate squares, vanilla, sugar, eggs, and flour. Maybe some kind of salt/baking soda thing or baking powder. I’ll have to look it up. It’s a pretty easy recipe.
Then you add a lot of pecans or walnuts. The only purpose of the brownie batter is to hold the nuts together, as far as I’m concerned.
But no crisco, nothing that tastes even remotely like ass.
Most of the cookie recipes I make regularly (like every fourth year or so) call for butter except the toll house cookies ask for margarine, I think. Or at least the version that my mother typed and kept in her recipe file called for margarine.
Whenever I make cookies I only cook one sheet-full and freeze the rest of the dough. If you freeze dough with butter in it, it’s more difficult to cut and shape when frozen or very cold, so if I’m planning to freeze most of it I’ll use margarine or part margarine.
Crisco, my god. I don’t think I’ve even thought about that shit in years. My mom and grandma swore by it though. I’m not sure why.
Oh, so here’s the deal: any time you come across something like this, use half Crisco – the normal Crisco, not that no-trans-fat shit, because honestly, Crisco is all ABOUT the trans fats, I mean what the fuck — and half butter.
If you use all butter, your cookies will be flat. If you use all Crisco, they’ll be plump and they will taste like crap.
Half and half means you get the texture and you get the richness.
A couple of years ago we were travelling around Scandinavia. In Norway, we passed the brewery for Aass beer, and spent the rest of the journey writing incredibly witty brilliant genius adverts for it. “How’s your beer?” “Mm! Tastes like Aass!”
[Deep sigh]
If your cookies are flat and burn-y, it’s usually because of a flour or baking soda problem, not lack of Crisco…most cookie recipes use butter! And allrecipes.com is awesome if you are looking for non-crisco desserts.
I hate brownies, actually, so I never make them. They’re not cake, they’re not cookies. It bothers my mouth, honestly. Too greasy or something.
Dear Mrs. K. I got to your website by googling brown “tastes like ass” “big ol tub of Crisco” and I must say I’m a little disappointed. Please up the pr0n content.
…
Just kidding. Long time listener, first time chardonnay drinker.
…
Just kidding. I drink and blog surf all the time.
Mrs. Kennedy! I’m from Denver, but living in NY. Here’s the toll house recipe my mom adapted due to high altitude, and they are excellent here at lower altitudes, too. There is the dreaded crisco to deal with, but the taste is great: http://www.urbanhonking.com/digest/archives/2006/03/classic_chocola.html
AND, if you want an all butter recipe, this one from Alton Brown is seriously delicious: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_13617,00.html
Well,
I’m no Martha Stewart but there’s only 1/4 C of Crisco in that recipe; change that to 3/4 and you might have something.
*ahem*
Betty Crocker Ghirardelli Chocolate Brownie Mix.
*ahem*
http://www.reluctanthousewife.com
In spite of how awful you said they were, I made these brownies. Instead of Crisco I used Earth Balance. I also used Rapadura instead of the brown sugar. They are so sweet it hurts, but soooo yummy! Mmmmm.