Which Maine city is linked to the name 'Bangor Brownie'?

The Maine city linked to the name “Bangor Brownie” is Bangor.

Bangor is a city in central Maine on the Penobscot River. Its name became associated with a style of chocolate brownie through early twentieth-century recipes and local baking claims. “Bangor Brownies” appeared as a recipe name in cookbooks, helping connect the dessert with Maine even though the brownie’s exact origin remains debated.

One often-repeated story says a Bangor housewife forgot to add baking soda to a chocolate cake, producing a dense, chewy square. That anecdote is entertaining but is not firm proof of the dessert’s invention. Food historians generally treat the brownie as an American development with several early recipes and competing origin stories.

The broader brownie history reaches back to the 1890s. A 1899 recipe called “Brownie cake” is frequently identified as an early chocolate precursor, while other early recipes used different names and formulas. Thus, Bangor is linked to the name and regional tradition—not universally accepted as the undisputed birthplace of every brownie.