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📌 Editor's Note (2025 Update):
First published as part of our journey exploring the heart of brownie history, this article has been expanded with fresh insights, FAQs, and behind-the-scenes reflections on our pilgrimage to the Palmer House Hotel — the birthplace of the brownie.
At Dello Mano, our journey with brownies has always been one of love, passion, and craftsmanship. Years after founding our family business, we travelled to Chicago on a personal pilgrimage to the Palmer House Hotel — the very place where the first brownie was born.
Standing beneath the soft glow of chandeliers, sharing our handmade brownies with the Palmer House kitchen team, and sitting quietly in the balcony overlooking the grand lobby, we felt something extraordinary: a connection between our own story and Bertha Palmer’s. It was as if across time, one love story handed the baton to another.
Bertha Palmer (1849–1918), whose vision at the Palmer House Hotel led to the creation of the world’s first brownie. Image courtesy of the Palmer House Hotel Museum, Chicago.
Just as Bertha requested a dessert crafted with elegance and heart, we too built Dello Mano on a dream — that food made by hand, with care and love, could leave a lasting mark.
The late 19th century was a golden age of innovation and celebration. The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition — better known as the Chicago World’s Fair — was a spectacular showcase of culture, architecture, and culinary ingenuity.
Amidst this backdrop of excitement, Bertha Palmer, the elegant and visionary wife of hotel magnate Potter Palmer, sought to create a new kind of dessert — something portable, luxurious, and sophisticated enough to delight the ladies attending the fair.
Bertha Palmer tasked the pastry chefs at Chicago’s famed Palmer House Hotel with an unusual challenge:
Create a dessert smaller than a cake, easier to serve, but rich enough to be worthy of a fine lunchbox.
The result? A chocolate dessert unlike any that had come before — dense, rich, studded with walnuts, and topped with a delicate apricot glaze. Thus, the first brownie was born — a treat that was both indulgent and portable, capturing the spirit of the times and the heart of every guest who tasted it.
(Founder’s Insight: When we visited the Palmer House kitchen, we had the privilege of exchanging our Dello Mano brownies with the team. It felt like a quiet, wordless handshake across generations — a moment we will always carry with us.)
The Palmer House Brownie was a luxurious creation:
Rich chocolate batter
Crunchy walnuts folded within
A shiny apricot glaze brushed on top after baking
Unlike the mass-market versions common today, the original Palmer House brownie was a luxurious, portable indulgence — a small handmade treasure in a busy world. Even now, the Palmer House Hotel serves its historic recipe, preserving Bertha Palmer’s legacy — a tradition that continues today in every Dello Mano brownie, where richness, elegance, and care still come first.
Following their debut at the World’s Fair, brownies captured imaginations across America and beyond.
Cookbooks featured them. Home bakers adapted them. Chocolate, once rare and precious, became more accessible — and brownies soon transformed from a hotel delicacy to a household staple.
Over the decades, brownies evolved into countless variations — from cakey to fudgy, nut-studded to swirled with caramel. Yet at their heart, they remain what Bertha envisioned: a portable, shareable moment of indulgence.
(Explore the difference between cakey and fudgy brownies here.)
Bertha Palmer’s story is more than culinary history.
It’s a reminder that great things often begin with a simple question, asked with imagination and heart.
In an age of mass production, Bertha’s original brownie reminds us that true luxury lies not in shortcuts, but in care, thought, and human connection. (Discover why handmade food remains the true luxury here.)
Her quiet innovation lives on — in every kitchen where chocolate meets butter and dreams meet reality.
At Dello Mano, we honour that legacy every day.
Years into our journey at Dello Mano, we made a pilgrimage to Chicago to experience brownie history firsthand.
Walking the marble halls of the Palmer House, we imagined Bertha Palmer herself — her elegant footsteps echoing softly as she shaped a moment that would become part of culinary legend.
We sat in the grand balcony, forks poised over a sundae crafted from the original recipe, and for a moment, time seemed to fold in on itself.
Bertha’s dream and our own felt stitched together by the scent of chocolate and history.
Later, we shared Dello Mano brownies with the Palmer House kitchen team — a small but deeply meaningful exchange.
It was a reminder that even across oceans and centuries, a handmade gift can still speak volumes.
(Discover how our own love story led to the founding of Dello Mano here.)
The first brownies were created at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago at the request of Bertha Palmer for the 1893 World's Fair. Her vision for an elegant, portable dessert led to the birth of the brownie.
Brownies were first made in the kitchens of the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, during preparations for the 1893 World’s Fair.
The original brownie was rich, dense, filled with walnuts, and glazed with a thin apricot topping — quite different from many modern versions but deeply luxurious.
Bertha Palmer was a visionary who combined hospitality, creativity, and a love for fine food. Her request sparked the invention of the brownie and forever changed dessert history.
From the elegant walnut-studded original to today’s endless variations — cakey, fudgy, salted caramel, gluten-free — the brownie has evolved while still symbolizing creativity, comfort, and a little touch of indulgence.
At Dello Mano, we craft each brownie as a small, heartfelt echo of Bertha Palmer’s dream — and our own.
More than a dessert, we believe a brownie is a bridge: between past and present, maker and guest, heart and hand.
Taste a modern love letter to the original brownie — explore our handmade brownie collection today. 🍫
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