Chocolate Things and Great Aunt Mary

Mary Bess Bailey, my grandmother's sister, was a seamstress before she married Leslie Howard Marshall in 1923. They lived in Ohio, and later had a winter home in Ft Myer. She grew up in Tennessee and Mississippi, but moved to Washington DC when her sister Bernice married Roger Calvert in 1918.  

Mary loved to read and collect poems- especially about nature. She made clothes, and crocheted beautiful white coverlets and quilted bedspreads. In our house growing up,  Aunt Mary was most famous for her hot fudge sauce, her tea brownies, and her chocolate muffins which were always part of Christmas brunch. 

Here is the hot fudge sauce recipe written in my mother's handwriting. Click on the recipes to make the image larger.

And the chocolate muffins.

And here's the recipe for tea brownies which cured my homesick blues on a visit to Aunt Mary's in 1970 when I was 11 years old. 

Aunt Mary's Tea Brownies 

Brownie Recipe

4 oz Baking Chocolate

1 c butter ( 2 sticks)

2  c sugar

4 eggs

1 c flour 

1tsp vanilla

1 tsp salt

Grease a 9X13 ( or slightly smaller) baking pan

Preheat oven to 325

Melt the 4 oz baking chocolate with the butter in microwave or slowly on stove- preferably in a pot sitting in another pot of hot water

Add 2 c of sugar and stir until mixed. Beat in 4 eggs. Stir in 1 cup flour and 1 tsp salt, add1 tsp vanilla 

Bake at 325 for 35 -40 minutes

ICING #1

3 c confectioners sugar 

2 TBS butter 

2 tsp vanilla

Beat together with a few TBSP cream or milk til spreadable. 

 When that has set, top with ICING #2

Melt 4 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips with 2 TBS butter

Speed on top of white icing while still warm.

I took this photo of Uncle Leslie and Aunt Mary in front of their Ohio house that year I went to visit them.