Past Newsletters
Vol 3 No 1

In Pursuit of Chocolate

Brownie’s with Zing…

This month we bring you a selection of luscious brownies from the famous Zingerman’s â Delicatessen in Michigan. Acclaimed as the culinary mecca of Ann Arbor, Zingerman’s â boasts a bevy of fans, literally from across the nation, who have been feasting on their rich, moist brownies for over a decade. These brownies are so magical, so desired, they had a hand in starting Zingerman’s â Mail Order division – since so many people leaving Ann Arbor requested to have the chocolate treasures sent to them! We’re sure that once you taste them, you’ll want to be added to their mailing list too.

Magic Brownies

These brownies are the Zingerman’s â original - brownies that loyal patrons have been feasting on for over a decade. Zingerman's â Deli alone sells over a thousand of these magical treats every week. Soft, Belgian chocolate, chewy interior dotted with toasted walnuts, covered with a thin chocolate crust. USA Today raves about them as "brownies the size of a wallet." Immerse yourself in the best-tasting baked treat around!

Black Magic Brownies

Same intense, chewy chocolate base but baked without the walnuts. They’ll cast a chocolate spell on you. Go nuts with no nuts!

Radical Raspberry Brownies

Imagine the greatest chocolate bar filled with the most flavorful and aromatic raspberry preserves you can find. This is the child of our same luscious, chocolate Black Magic Brownie, only with full-flavored, traditionally made raspberry preserves from the Piemonte region of Italy.

Buenos Aires Brownies

All we can say is “Wow!” Two layers of Black Magic Brownie sandwiched in a layer of Dulce de Leche, the sweet Argentine caramel cream, topped with a blend of sugar and almonds cooked together into a toasty, dark caramel that’s been ground into a sweet, crunchy praline powder.

Nutty Butter Brownies

We start with the chocolatey Black Magic Brownie, melt in creamy, all-natural peanut butter, and then sprinkle in a handful of perfectly toasted peanuts. Peanut butter and chocolate lovers go gaga over them. We knew you wouldn’t want to miss this chance to taste one of the world's best sweet sensations!

What is Zingerman’s Anyway?

An American Institution Gets its Start

Zingerman’s â is fast becoming America’s best-known Deli. Opened in March of 1982 by Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig in an historic building near the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market, the Deli got its start with a small selection of great-tasting specialty foods, as host of traditional Jewish dishes and a relatively short sandwich menu.

In 1992, Zingerman’s â Bakehouse opened, bringing traditionally baked breads and pastries, along with their now famous Magic Brownies, to Ann Arbor and Zingerman’s â customers across the country. The Bakehouse has an on-site bakeshop which sells baked goods to retail customers, and has opened two new bakeshops in downtown Ann Arbor.

Today, Zingerman’s â is an Ann Arbor institution, the source of great food and great experiences for thousands of visitors every year. From its inception, Zingerman’s â has been committed to delivering the most flavorful, traditionally made foods and baked goods to its customers. Consistently working to find more authentic ingredients and improved techniques to offer up ever more flavorful baked goods, Zingerman’s â has always believed that their customers can tell the difference between mediocre and marvelous. The fact that, while competition increases every day, great numbers of food-loving folks continue to find their way down to Detroit Street to eat just reinforces that belief.

Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw
Co-Owners and Founding Partners of Zingerman’s â

Ari Weinzweig moved to Ann Arbor from his hometown of Chicago to attend the University of Michigan. After graduating with a degree in Russian history, he went to work washing dishes in a local restaurant and soon discovered that he loved the food business.

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1975, Paul Saginaw inadvertently began his career in the food service industry when he left a graduate program in public health to assume a position in a seafood restaurant. His zoology degree from the University of Michigan assisted him greatly in identifying the species of fish for his restaurant guests. Working several years in a managerial capacity with this organization shaped the development of his own business philosophy. In 1979, the opportunity arrived to put those ideas into practice. He and a long-time friend, Mike Monahan, became the owners and operators of a seafood retail/wholesale business, which thrives to this day.

A few years later, Paul was offered the chance to open a delicatessen across the street from his fish market. He and his former co-worker, Ari Weinzweig, had dreamed of such a possibility for years. Joining forces, they founded Zingerman’s â Delicatessen.

Zingerman’s â started as 1300 square feet of combined restaurant and specialty food retail space, run solely by Paul, Ari and one full-time employee. When the Bakehouse opened in 1992, Paul, Ari and Frank Carollo, their baking partner, became manufacturers of their own bread and baked goods, with the sole intention of supplying the Deli. They had spent many frustrating years in search of quality and consistency in this most vital menu item. They sought out the baking expertise and training of Michael London of Greenwich, New York, and have since become one of the premier bakeries in the country. Producing a flavorful array of traditional, hearth-baked breads and scrumptious, buttery pastries, Zingerman’s â Bakehouse is the fastest growing part of the organization.

Zingerman’s â Garners Sweet Celebrations

“Zingerman’s â…changes Ann Arbor in the manner that Wallace Steven’s jar on a hill in Tennessee changes the wilderness. If I were ever sentenced to a gut-wrenching year of teaching, I’d merely buy a house down the street and be quite happy. In Zingerman’s â, I get the mighty reassurance that the world can’t be totally bad if there’s this much good food to eat, the same flowing emotions I get at Fauchon in Paris, Harrod’s food department in London, Balducci’s or Dean and Deluca in New York, only at Zingerman’s â there is a goodwill lacking in the others.”

- Jim Harrison, Esquire

“For some time, I’ve been hearing that buzz about Zingerman’s â, a delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Ari Weinzweig, its most visible partner. A recent visit convinced me Zingerman’s â is something special and left me pondering only two things: Why did Wienzweig, a native of Chicago ever leave our city? And, how can we get him back?”

- William Rice, The Chicago Tribune

“Since Zingerman’s â opened its doors almost eleven years ago, it’s become an Ann Arbor tradition so hallowed that to criticize it would be tantamount to a sacrilege.”

- The Ann Arbor News

“Zingerman’s â is more an adventure than an eating experience… Top quality fixings, friendliness and service are the watchwords, and they always rule in…Zingerman’s â.”

- Linda and Fred Griffith, Cleveland Magazine

8 Steps to the Ultimate Bakehouse Brownies

Butter Tastes Better

You can't tell just from looking at a brownie or cookie whether it's been baked with butter or shortening. The bottom line on baked goods' flavor is that butter tastes better. It's also about ten times more costly, so more and more commercial bakeries are shifting towards less expensive shortenings or margarine. You can taste and smell the difference at Zingerman's â Bakehouse. The sweet, rich scent of butter is right up front. Shortening, on the other hand, has no aroma to speak of. Superb baked goods should smell superb.

Better Butter

The Bakehouse doesn't just use any butter. Many of our baked goods start with sweet butter from Grassland. Tastes better, with less water, and more flavor. There's no way around it - the better the butter the better the baked goods.

Pure Peanut Butter

It's the little things that make the difference. If you're going to make a good peanut butter brownie, you've got no choice but to go out and get the best peanut butter going. Zingerman’s â uses only all-natural peanut butter with an ingredients list of one: peanuts. No preservatives, no gums, no sugar, no fillers. Just lots of wonderful flavor that makes for lots of wonderful brownies.

Real Vanilla

Real vanilla is the first thing that big bakeries eliminate. You can use industrial, imitation vanilla for about one-twentieth of the cost of the real thing. And, by proportion, you use so little vanilla in a batch of baked goods it's easy to delude yourself into thinking that no one will notice. But you can clearly taste the difference. Real vanilla is literally almost 150 times as complex in flavor as artificial vanillin. Zingerman’s â won’t ever use anything but real vanilla - it adds incredible aroma and flavor to their brownies and other baked goods.

Unbleached and Unbromated Flours

The better the flour, the better the baked goods. Zingerman’s â Bakehouse works with stone-ground flour from local millers, the Daily Grind in Ann Arbor, as well as from the highly respected King Arthur mills in upstate New York.

Fresh Eggs

The norm nowadays for commercial bakeries is to use frozen eggs that come in white plastic buckets. The Bakehouse stubbornly sticks to old-fashioned eggs in the traditional oval-shaped white shell, the way they made 'em "back in the old days." Delivered fresh from Jim Bilbie's Egg Farm just outside of Ann Arbor.

Toasted Pecans, Almonds And Walnuts

Toasting takes time and time is money. But it also adds a lot of flavor to nuts. So Zingerman’s â does it. Toasting brings depth to their brownies and everything else they make with nuts in it.

Love

The crew at the Bakehouse is adamant that everything that enters and emerges from their ovens does so with the same personal seal of approval - the kind you'd get if you went over to your grandmother's for a cold glass of milk and a brownie right out of the oven. We hope you enjoy the experience.

The Origins of the Brownie
By Ari Weinzweig, Co-Owner of Zingerman’s â Bakehouse

I’ve spent some time over the last few weeks trying to gather information about the origins of the brownie. And you know, for what is arguably North America’s most beloved baked good, there’s a surprising dearth of information out there to be had. One source says brownies were invented by a Miss Brownie Schrumpf, a librarian from Maine who supposedly forgot to add baking powder to her chocolate cake and ended up with brownies. Another source credits the original recipe to Fanny Farmer. Either way, they’re said to have been the most popular American baked good of the 1920’s.

In our own world, I can confidently say that the recipe for Zingerman’s â Magic Brownies is credited to one Ms. Connie Gray, ex Ann Arborite who currently lives happily in Baltimore. Connie’s the one who gets credit for the special thin crust, and chewy center. Thank you, Connie for making possible so many great chocolate-y bites over all these years.

I can also tell you that 3,000 of these chocolate beauties leave the Bakehouse ovens every week. They’ve been acclaimed in US Today “…loaded with chocolate, scented with real vanilla, studded with toasted walnuts and mixed with fresh eggs, they’ve got a thin crust and a rich, fudgie interior you can sink your teeth into.” Take a Magic Brownie ride today.

Serving Suggestions

Radical Raspberry Brownies

· Drizzle plate with chocolate and caramel sauce

· Place a brownie on top of sauces

· Put a small scoop of raspberry sorbet on top of brownie

· Add a dollop of the whipped cream next to the sorbet

· Top with fresh raspberries or mint

Nutty Butter Brownie

· Warm brownie in microwave.

· Top with French vanilla ice-cream

· Pour on warm caramel sauce and sprinkle with peanuts

Buenos Aires Brownie

· Top with fruit of your choice

· Drizzle caramel sauce on top

· Add a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle with nuts

Magic Brownie

· Squiggle unsweetened whipped cream on top of brownie

· Top with some fresh strawberries marinated in red wine for an hour

· Sprinkle with crushed red peppercorn and grated coconut