The Chocolate Dessert Ina Garten Made For Jeffrey As 'An Expression Of Love'

Celebrity chef Ina Garten has been cooking for decades. She is best known for her Food Network show, "Barefoot Contessa," which was named after the specialty foods store she ran in the Hamptons for nearly 20 years. In Garten's new memoir, "Be Ready When the Luck Happens," she reveals she found her love for cooking as a child, but she didn't discover food as a love language until she met her own love, Jeffrey Garten. His favorites were chocolate treats — specifically, brownies — and it was baking for him that helped her realize the love that food represented.

"I loved the smell in the house, but most of all, I loved taking care of Jeffrey and making him happy," Garten writes in the book of cooking for her husband. Over the years, she's featured Jeffrey in many of her show's episodes and even has a whole cookbook "Cooking for Jeffrey" dedicated to his favorite recipes. In her new memoir, she writes, "I'd think of him while I cooked, and when he reached for one of my cookies or brownies, I knew he'd think of me."

Ina Garten says in her memoir that dating Jeffrey caused her to think differently about the kitchen and the way she bakes. "This was the very first time I thought of food as an expression of love. Before I started cooking for Jeffrey, food could be good, bad, or mediocre," she writes of her initial connection to the hobby. "Now baking something delicious was a way to express my feelings and to connect with Jeffrey."

Ina has her brother to thank for her first introduction to Jeffrey. She was visiting her brother at Dartmouth College in 1963 when she and Jeffrey connected, and they started dating that same year. They wed in 1968, and the two have been at each other's side (often in the kitchen) ever since. 

Although in her memoir Ina says that the early brownies she made for Jeffrey were likely from a Dunkin' Hines Mix, she's shared her recipe for Outrageous Brownies with fans on her website. In this version of the chocolatey dessert, Garten adds ingredients like instant coffee and chopped walnuts to give the brownies a deeper flavor and a little bit more texture. For another expert tip, about halfway through the baking process, she taps the tray of brownies against the oven shelf to remove excess air before finishing the baking process, creating a dense, chocolatey finished product – perfect for sharing with a loved on as a token of your affection.