My favorite brownie recipe

My grandmother’s kitchen was a wonderful place where the fragrance of canning spices defused throughout the entire house. There was always something good to eat in her fridge, a variety of home canned fruit and veggies in her pantry, and plenty of ice-cream in the freezer.

It was the place her children and grandchildren congregated nearly every Sunday afternoon for dinner. Weekly family gatherings were more common then.

My grandparents owned the only appliance/television/music store in Moses Lake. The store was profitable enough to allow my grandfather to travel extensively and build a 3,200 sq. ft. house on the lake.

We lived in the hood but we were also the first house in the neighborhood to own an automatic dishwasher, washer and dryer, TV/stereo console and color TV.

My Dad was a carpenter by trade. Occasionally, he helped out in the repair department of my grandparents store, where an inventory of miscellaneous spare appliance parts was free for the taking.

He made interesting use of those parts, which, at times, was a little embarrassing. For a while, we had a lamp in our living room that was a washing machine agitator. I think my Mom painted it lavender. He also constructed a countertop cake mixer, sort of like a KitchenAid but not quite. It had a washing machine motor and there was only one speed setting—High.

Mom at work and me at camp, it wasn’t long before my younger sister, Margaret, figured out the best use of that rare unsupervised time was to mix up a chocolate cake in the turbo mixer. Unfortunately, the one boxed cake mix left in the cupboard ended up spread out over the entire kitchen. Apparently, the mixer somehow turned on before any wet ingredients were added and in an instant, the mix was up and gone, like the funnel of a tornado.

And so, the inspiration of this week’s recipe. This isn’t a chocolate cake recipe, but the best brownie recipe I’ve ever tasted. It was shared with me years ago by one of my church sisters.

I mix it up in the KitchenAid my grandmother bought in 1955, which still runs great and has a regular motor. Enjoy!