I ate a lot of brownies in college. No, not those kind of brownies.  Please, I was not that cool. I’m talking instead about the Duncan Hines ones. The go-to dessert of the cash-strapped college student. Slap on some frosting and bring em’ to Shabbat dinner brownies. Sure, they get the job done. They’re sweet, chewy, and vaguely chocolatey, but true brownies are not supposed to taste like that. Boxed brownies never really did it for me because in my family we never used the box, we made Naomi’s Brownies. An age old family recipe dating back to my Aunt Jean and later published in an elementary school cookbook by my cousin, Naomi. If you’ve never had a homemade brownie, get ready for your life to change. Prepare yourself to be transported to a mind-altering state (still not those kind of brownies) of chocolatey bliss.

Naomi’s Brownies

3 ounces of Hershey’s unsweetened baking chocolate

1 stick of butter or margarine

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup flour

1 tsp vanilla

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to to 350. Grease and flour an 8×8 pan. Melt butter or margarine and chocolate in a small saucepan until silky smooth and let cool. Beat eggs and sugar and whisk into the chocolate mixture. Add flour, salt and vanilla and mix everything together. Stir in pecans and pour into your pan and bake for 25 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar and watch people fall in love with a real brownie.

The best study snack, second only to Red Bull and Adderall.