I think it was a Hershey recipe? I have looked at various Hershey cookbooks and the Hershey website and cannot locate anything that seems right. It was a very chocolaty, chewy and rich and contained chopped dates.
—Cathy Stolarski, Mundelein
A: Questions like this are hard to answer. There are many recipes out there and who knows which was used by your aunt. You did offer some valuable clues: the 1950s time frame and the brand name, Hershey. I did a Google search and zeroed in on a recipe for chocolate date and nut bars in a 1971 revised edition of "Hershey's 1934 Cookbook," a promotional book created by The Hershey Co., the Hershey, Pa.-based chocolate giant.
At the same time, I also called the folks at Hershey's and asked for help. Anna Lingeris, the company's manager of Global Brand PR and Consumer Engagement, had the kitchen staff look for recipes featuring chopped dates that were published up through the 1950s. They found only two, both from "The Hershey Recipe Cookbook" of 1930.
Now you might say to me, well, these recipes are from 1930 and I enjoyed these brownies in the 1950s. That's true, but Aunt Anne had to have gotten that recipe somewhere. If you were a child of the 1950s or 1960s, she might have been a kid or a young adult in the 1930s when the recipes were published. Also, the recipes were reprinted over the years, including the 1934 book and its revisions, so your aunt might have found them in a later Hershey's book.
Lingeris wanted me to note neither recipe has been kitchen tested since 1992. Give both of them a try, then start tweaking proportions and ingredients to get it as close as your memory remembers. Your Aunt Anne probably did made similar adjustments to whatever recipe she used. We all do that with beloved recipes—we jigger amounts, streamline steps, add little flourishes to make them our own. Let me know how it goes.
I've left the Hershey brand names in these recipes but you can, of course, experiment with other chocolate products out there.
One thing to keep in mind with future searches is how you word your search online. Neither recipe from Hershey's has a title with the word "brownie" in it. No wonder you couldn't find them. Sometimes you need to search by ingredients and, in this case, a brand name like Hershey, to get results.
Hershey's chocolate date and nut bars
Makes: 2 dozen bars
2 eggs
1/2 cup each: granulated sugar; sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 tablespoons Hershey's chocolate flavored syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup each: chopped walnuts, chopped dates
Powdered sugar (garnish)
1.Beat eggs in medium bowl. Gradually add granulated sugar, beating until well blended. Stir together flour and baking powder; add to egg mixture, beating until blended. Add syrup and vanilla; beat until blended. Stir in dates and walnuts. Spread batter into a greased, 9-inch square baking pan.
