Countless Allrecipes community members—and the whole of our staff—are a little (okay, a lot) obsessed with brownies.

On a constant quest to take them to the next level, we have tested and perfected Mmm-Mmm Better Brownies. We’ve got the Best Brownies. And if this recipe could talk, it would say “Not so fast, I’m, Absolutely the Best Brownies.” We can’t forget Brooke’s Best Bombshell Brownies and The Ultimate Brownies, either.

The competition for the ultimate, absolute best brownie of all time is stiff, so we’ll leave that up to you to decide which earns your trophy. But before you make your final call, we have another contender to add to the mix after scouring the archives of the PBS project, The History Kitchen: Katharine Hepburn’s Brownies.

We’ll be dishing up the recipe below, but before we do, we have to take a moment to highlight the silver screen icon’s remarkably simple secret that makes her brownies—and honestly, any brownie recipe—better.

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