I managed to throw together a pan of Flour‘s Intense Chocolate Brownies today for my aunt’s post-barbecue Make Your Own Sundae Bar this weekend. However, I have a feeling Someone may lay claim to a few tonight so I must dash out for more unsweetened bar chocolate.

Perhaps you’re thinking Flour’s brownies are a little laborious to end up as a base for a sundae and I should have just bought a box of Duncan Hines. But that just isn’t me. I usually nix mixes with one exception: when pressed for time and my hubby has a chocolate jones, the just-add-yogurt No Pudge Brownies aren’t a bad substitute. And unlike Flour or King Arthur‘s brownies — my go-to recipes — they are 120 calories (and zero fat) for a two-inch square. I care about those things…sometimes.

While whisking in the melted chocolate into the egg and butter mixture this morning, I got to thinking about what is it about a lowly brownie — whether it’s made from scratch or Betty Crocker — that makes people, well, nuts.

I posted an Instagram photo of the pan on my Facebook page and the “likes” just kept on coming!

I chalk it up to nostalgia. What kid from any decade didn’t savor a brownie and a glass of milk? In the convenience-happy 60′s and 70′s, we didn’t care they weren’t baked from scratch. In fact, what was back then?

School and church bake sales were full of goodies by Duncan, Betty and the Doughboy showcased on tin foil-wrapped paper plates encased in Saran Wrap or tied up in a Baggie. And our mothers were proud to bring them!

I still have fond memories of our neighbor Mrs. Araujo’s awesome peanut butter cookies. Her secret ingredient was a box of Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix. The recipe? It was on the box!

I don’t care. It was the tastiest peanut butter cookie I have ever eaten. And I loved the hashtag design she made with a fork on each cookie…

Today, school bake sales are practically outlawed by the dietary police because, let’s face it, these women  — yes, women — are just p.o.ed their precious spawn have nuts and gluten allergies or they’re lactose intolerant. What happens if Emma or Elliot comes in contact with an M&M cookie and helicopter mom isn’t hovering over with the epi pen? The terrorists win. That’s what.

There are bake sales that do exist, but now they’re stealthy operations in the dark recesses of church basements or community centers.

The last, and I mean the last, time I baked for such a food fund-raiser, the women in charge were visibly unimpressed with my Adamsville Cheddar Cheese Bread or my dozen bags of festively packed Hermits. I even included a list of ingredients on every package to quiet the summer people from Connecticut or New York who play Twenty Questions when buying any local food. (And, heaven forbid, you’re the next person in line. But I digress.)

During the day, when I saw the hermits weren’t moving on the card table, but the cupcakes with neon-colored frosting (blech) were long gone, I bought four packages and gave one to the pastor who looked like man who appreciated a good spicy raisin bar. Who knows? Maybe he re-gifted. Or perhaps I should have made brownies…

Tags: #bakesales, #brownies, #nostalgia, Baking