A Year of Cooking Genealogically, Pawtucket Fingers

Welcome back - and back to baking we go!  But before we do, just an update on the beet salad.  As I suspected, SIL is finishing up the 2nd container that was supposedly meant for his brother - oops, sorry there Tony.  In more spectacular news, DH sampled a forkful again, as he did not taste the revised version with sugar added, and pronounced it 'better'.  He did not, however, go back for a second sample.  It appears 'better' is relatively equal to 'I still ain't gonna eat beets'.  But I digress.

The name of this recipe is what intrigued me, and I wondered what backstory the recipe has. More exciting is that the instructions contain an actual baking time, woot-woot!

Ingredients
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 squares chocolate*
3 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
salt**
1 cup chopped walnuts***
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

*I used unsweetened baking squares
**I used 1/2 teaspoon salt
***no walnuts, so I used pecans

Directions
Bake about 30 minutes in a moderate oven.  Cut in fingers while hot.  These are nice with afternoon tea, or in the evening with ice cream.

While I am grateful to Kate for serving suggestion, mixing directions would have been lovely.  I decided to approach this recipe much like Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies - cream the sugars and fats, added the liquid, followed by mixed dry.  I melted the butter and chocolate in the microwave (yeah, yeah, I know, authenticity and all that), then beat in sugar, followed by eggs and vanilla (with my KitchenAid mixer - authenticity only goes so far when the rain is making your arthritis kick into high gear).  I added the mixed dry ingredients last and folded in the nuts at the end.  A quick finger dip into the batter (admit it, y'all taste test sweet batters with your finger), and as I suspected, this tastes a lot like brownie mix, albeit with a fluffy cake like consistency.

With no suggestion as to baking dish size, I used my trusty 8 x 12 x 2 ceramic baker, and with an abundance of caution, I sprayed it down with non-stick spray.  Since Kate provided the baking time, I judged a 'moderate' oven to be 350.  I popped it in and began checking after 20 minutes.  Kate was spot on the money as at 30 minutes a toothpick came out clean and the surface provided that slight spring back.  As I suspected Pawtucket Fingers are really light chocolate nut brownies.

But I was still curious about the name, so it was off to quiz the Google.  Unlike Matrimonial Cake I found exactly 3 listings.  The first recipe had this attribution...

"This recipe was given to innkeeper Anne Gi Conte by Helen Marsh when her family came for dinner. It has been a real favorite around the Sugar Pine Farm Bed & Breakfast ever since."

Two of the three recipes on Google cite Sugar Pine Farm Bed & Breakfast as the recipe source, and admittedly their recipe is incredibly similar to Kate's recipe.  But the attribution above states that the Inn didn't create the recipe, but merely used it. The other recipe from Google is listed on Recipe Genius, and is labeled as Brownie Fingers - note, there are many recipes on Google for Brownie Fingers, but none reference the distinct name of Pawtucket.  Interestingly, both the Sugar Pine Farm recipe and the Recipe Genius entry have the added step of rolling the 'fingers' in powdered sugar.  But since Kate didn't specify that step, I've left it off.  And I know my Pawtucket Fingers look a little stumpy, but hey, the Lord blessed me with snausages for fingers, so my brownies look the same.  

After spending a half hour or so putting my computer wizardry degree to hard use via the internet, I came up empty as to the recipe name's meaning.  While Pawtucket is a city in Rhode Island, the only connection I can find to the recipe is the Sugar Pine Farm Bed & Breakfast mentioned above in Quechee, Vermont, only a whopping 182 miles apart.  However they didn't create the recipe and unfortunately, there is no other information on the Bed & Breakfast, so that appears to be a dead end.  Additionally, a lovely woman on Facebook named "Betty" posted a picture of her Pawtucket Fingers in 2011, describing them as "basically light chocolate brownies and very simple to make - Baker's chocolate, margarine, sugar, flour, salt, baking powder, vanilla. Recipe goes back at least to my grandmother."  However, when asked in the comments as to why they're called "Pawtucket Fingers", she had no idea about the source of the name either.  

So, it does appear that the reason these brownies are labeled "Pawtucket Fingers" is lost to history.  If you have any guesses or info, I'd love for you to weigh in!  As to DH, I think he's stopping by UDF for the suggested ice cream...my verdict is that we would probably make these again.