Omnivore - Wholly Brownie: Searching for the best brownie in Atlanta

• Monique Huiet
• Let the grail quest for ATL’s Wholly Brownie begin

Wholly Brownie, kicking off with this entry, intends to be an occasional blog on one man’s search for brownie bliss.

Tales of grail quests, as literary lore goes, are routinely fatal to their authors. Specifically, writing the last line of a quest for the grail (or maybe even just a grail) seems to beckon the Grim Reaper like no other enterprise.

Good thing someone’s always coming along with a new brownie recipe, in that case. Of course, some folks consider the eating of processed sugar one of the open-armedest invitations to a premature demise a person can make. A better thing, then — well, maybe — that I ignore what some folks consider conventional wisdom.

My sweet tooth is basically bigger than my whole head. Steve Almond’s memoir Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America is my own autobiography, despite having been written by someone else (if I’ve failed to eat at least one piece of chocolate on any day of my adult life, I must’ve been in a fugue state at the time because I cannot recall such a day).

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But my love of chocolate — the darker the better, though those 85-percent bars are damn close to unsweetened cocoa powder — reaches its state of bliss with baked goods. The chocolate chip cookie is fine, though it tends to be better while warm. Cakes, especially the most ganache-laden ones, are lovely but often leave me craving more textural oomph.

Thus, the brownie. Like the aforementioned drop cookie, our nation’s favorite bar cookie is often better warm. I know, because I bake a mean brownie myself, and, well, once you’ve filled a house with the scents of burnt sugar and hot cacao, waiting is typically not feasible. The ideal one, however, is chewy and a bit crusty simultaneously and delicious at room temperature. And it is never, ever cakey.

After years of consuming the chocolate-frosted “fudge squares” made by the neighborhood bakery of my youth, I further decided that putting icing on a brownie is gilding the lily. I’ve encountered an example or two in recent years that made me question that decision, but for the most part I don’t venerate intense sweetness in brownies, a place most toppings take me to.

The nonpackaged brownie I ate most recently, at the time I write this essay*, was a frosted one, and it lost points as a result. I got it at the Ponce de Leon Whole Foods bakery (Midtown Place Shopping Center, 650 Ponce de Leon Ave. N.E., 404-853-1681, wholefoodsmarket.com), and it wore a thin, sweet gloss up top. I shared it with my friend M., who tore pieces off the bar. It stretched in an almost taffylike fashion when she did so. The brownie had exemplary chewiness but lacked the crusty quality I adore. It also lacked nuts, which I also adore (walnuts most, pecans next) but find in fewer and fewer of the very best brownies I eat. What I was hoping for was a brownie identical to one I bought months ago from the Whole Foods on West Paces Ferry in Buckhead. The Ponce brownie, in comparison to that exemplar, seemed like a pretender to greatness.

In case the connection between grails and brownies remains unclear: I am now, and hope always to be, in pursuit of the best of all possible brownies. Have any favorites to suggest? Do let me know about them.

Meantime, off I gallop in quest of the Wholly Brownie.

• Since then I had a packaged lunchtime brownie, about which more at a later date.

Ed Hall is operations editor for Creative Loafing. He also writes the Super Visions feature for CL’s Fresh Loaf blog. And he loves his chocolate.