CAPSULE REPORT: Made from the finest ingredients and certified kosher, these classic-style American brownies are thankfully made in mini-snacking size as well as full-dessert size, enabling brownie-lovers to enjoy little nibbles more often. Shrink-wrapped for freshness and easy transport, they make great gifts for young and old alike. In addition to the main line, made with pure butter, the company makes a parve chocolate brownie. The company also makes parve hamentashen.
“It’s so hard to find a good mail-order brownie,” one of our editors, a chocolate expert, lamented a few months ago. Some might say, it’s hard to find a good brownie, period. After Claire Sauerhoff’s classic Double Chocolate brownie won top honors in a national competition to find the best brownie recipe held by COPIA*, her friends convinced her to give up her job as a New York marketing executive and bake her brownies full-time.
*The American Center for Food, Wine and The Arts, founded by Julia Child and Robert Mondavi, among others.
The Exceptional Brownie utilizes the very best ingredients—Guittard chocolate, Grade A sweet butter, real vanilla and crunchy nuts—in a “less is more” recipe. The profile is quite elegant: Even the peanut butter brownie doesn’t overwhelm with an excess of peanut butteriness, but swirls in the peanut butter as a grace note. Given how so many recipes are excessive in their butteriness, sugariness, chocolatiness, etc., these brownies are “exceptional” in their restraint. The one “brown sheep” of the family is Raspberry Swirl, which gives raspberry-lovers their berry’s worth of fruitiness.
Gourmet Brownie Flavors
The flavors include:
Berry Nutty
(dried blueberries, cherries, and
cranberries, topped with almonds)
Butterscotch Blondie
Blondie Choc-Chip
Double Chocolate
Espresso Choco-Chip
Peanutty Swirl
Raspberry Swirl
Walnut Double Chocolate
The brownies are made in two sizes:
The Maxi, 3" square and 3 to 3.25 ounces, is dessert-size.
The Mini, 2" square and 2 to 2.5* ounces, is a good snack size.
All flavors are made in both sizes.
Blondie Choc-Chip. Photo by Melody Lan.
Hamentashen: Chocolate-Dipped Apricot and
Poppy. Photo by Claire Freierman.
Unlike many lines of brownies that are too sweet for sophisticated adults, the Sophisticated Brownie appeals to the sophisticated palate—but kids will love them, too. It’s easy to take care of birthday, holiday and other gift occasions with the click of a mouse.
And, with the welcome Mini size, it’s easy to:
Minimize one’s intake, by enjoying a smaller brownie more often
Maximize one’s enjoyment, by enjoying a larger variety of flavors, mini-sized.
You can have your cake, and eat it too, and share it with friends.
Hamentashen
And you can also have hamentashen, year-round—not just around Purim (March).
The story of the Jewish holiday of Purim, as told in the Bible’s Book of Esther, tells of the deliverance of the Jewish people from an annihilation plot of the Persian king Haman. Like most Jewish holidays, this one has its traditional food, hamentashen (also spelled hamantashen), which means “Haman’s pockets” in Yiddish. Hamentashen is a triangular-shaped pastry with a cookie-like dough, not particularly sweet, originally filled with a sweetened poppy seed or prune paste. Today hamentashen is made with a variety of fillings to please modern palates. The Exceptional Brownie sells them in assortments that include Awesome Apricot, Chocolate-Dipped Apricot, Puckered Prune, Rockin’ Raspberry and Poppy’s Poppy. Around Purim, they can be purchased in individual flavors. They’re parve (made without butter) and a lovely little pastry to enjoy with coffee or tea.
PARVE BROWNIE: Double Chocolate Certified kosher by OU
Mini Brownies
Half Dozen, $16.00
Dozen, $30.00
Maxi Brownies
Half Dozen, $20.00
Dozen, $36.00
Parve Brownies
Double Chocolate Maxis
Dozen, Gift Tin, $44.00
Hamentashen
Gift Boxes
$25.00 and $36.00
Other sizes and packaging options available, including gift assortments, holiday packaging, party favors and private label packaging. See website for more information.
*Prices and product availability are verified at publication but are subject to change. Shipping is additional. These items are offered by a third party and THE NIBBLE has no relationship with them. This link to purchase is provided as a reader convenience.
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