What cookbook contained the first published brownie recipe?

The first published brownie recipe appeared in Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. The recipe was included in the 1896 edition, although it was a molasses-based confection rather than the intensely chocolate brownie many people know today.

That early recipe reflected the brownie’s transitional stage between cake and dessert bar. It contained molasses and a nut at its center, but no chocolate. Farmer later revised the recipe, and the 1906 edition included chocolate, helping introduce the brownie in a recognizable form to readers across the United States.

The answer can be confused with Lowney’s Cook Book, which published a notable “Bangor Brownie” recipe in 1907, or with the Palmer House brownie associated with Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The Palmer House story is historically important, but the dessert was not yet called a brownie in contemporary cookbooks or journals. The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book is therefore the standard answer for the first published brownie recipe.