Winner Best Chocolate Pastry Recipe Story

Drew Tybus of Hoboken, NJ

Recipe Story: Delicious Rounds

My favorite chocolate recipe is my mom and sister's homemade brownies. These soft bars of delicious were always a treat on cold days in the winter. Often times, my mom would use them as bargaining chips to get us to shovel the driveway during snowstorms. The smell that came from the oven was rich and warm and to this day is one of few scents that brings me straight back to my childhood. The argument always arose, with or without walnuts. I happen to live walnuts and chocolate chips in my brownies, but I always knew that if my sister was making them, I would have to do without. Regardless, I always looked forward to that first bite, when the glass-like sheen on the top of the brownies would break and the moist center would let out the smell of milk chocolate. While everyone loves brownie batter, my favorite part was when they first came out of the oven, and my mom would say, "Don't touch them, they need to rest" and with that alone, my brother and I would team up to distract her while one of us took a few hot ones from the pan. I loved that time of my life, and to this day I still get brownies on my birthday.