Gertrude Powers's Raspberry Brownies

Yield: 16 brownies

When my mother, Nancy Powers Martin, was a child in West Medford, Massachusetts, she loved her mother's desserts. Her favorite was chocolate brownies with homemade raspberry jam swirled into the batter. My grandmother, Gertrude Powers, served them on hand-painted porcelain plates.

Usually brownies are baked in a square metal pan, but I break with tradition and bake mine in a ten-inch glass pie plate and serve them in wedges. My mother, a retired dietitian, substitutes canola oil and cocoa for her mother's butter and chocolate. My grandmother never put vanilla extract or salt in her brownies. She said they diminish the intensity of the chocolate flavor. I agree, but recently I stirred a tablespoon of raspberry liqueur into the batter before swirling in the jam. The brownies were delicious. My grandmother would have liked them.