Katharine Hepburn Was Picky About Brownies

While most of us know Katharine Hepburn for her work on screen, she also had a strong passion for food and even published a few recipes. It's also no secret that she absolutely loved brownies but was particular about how she liked them. Not every brownie was up to her standards. They needed to be moist and chewy. Cakey brownies were not something she appreciated at all.

In the book "At Home with Kate: Growing Up in Katharine Hepburn's Household," the daughter of Katharine Hepburn's cook wrote that her mother couldn't believe how much Hepburn loved sweets. Hepburn had a family recipe for rich and moist walnut brownies, and she often asked her cook to make them. The recipe called for just one tablespoon of flour, alongside one cup of sugar, two eggs, a quarter pound of butter, and two squares of Baker's chocolate. Hepburn requested her cook "keep these on hand to serve at home and to be ready to be packed up in tins to give to friends." The recipe is very nearly fudge. With so little flour there was no risk of it becoming too cakey.

If someone else made brownies for her, and it was well known that Hepburn was a fan, she was not shy with an immediate critique. She would take a bite and tell the baker right then and there if it was chewy enough or had too much flour. She was also known to share her own recipe in the same breath, so having a pen and paper handy was a good idea.

Katharine Hepburn's cooking was known to have some unusual twists, like her burgundy chicken recipe, which she topped with sliced mushrooms and small sour pickles. Her brownie recipe allowed for some flexibility. While her cook used a tablespoon of flour, Hepburn's original recipe called for a quarter cup but sometimes she'd use just a tablespoon and sometimes none. She occasionally used cocoa powder instead of Baker's chocolate, too. The key was to not over bake. They had to be gooey.

The recipe first came to light in the August 1975 issue of Ladies' Home Journal when gossip columnist Liz Smith interviewed Katharine Hepburn. Although that interview is difficult to find, there are countless recreations of the recipe that cite it as the original source. That means this recipe has been associated with Hepburn for at least half a century.

Journalist Rex Reed spoke about Hepburn serving him brownies right out of the baking pan in 1979. Brownies were clearly one of Hepburn's favorite foods. The actress herself admitted in her memoir to having a love of chocolate that was pretty much boundless, saying she could eat a pound in a sitting. It's no surprise these brownies would have been so appealing to her.

The book "At Home with Kate" refers to the brownies as a Hepburn family recipe, but the origins of it are unknown. Whether it was passed down from her mother, grandmother, or someone else has been lost to history. That said, the number of people who have tried the recipe and fallen in love with it means its legacy will live on. Try her brownie recipe yourself and see.