Mari Tuttle believes that before you eat, you see. Which is why the former commercial designer wraps her nibble-sized brownies in packaging that pops. Bold, tangerine-orange baton boxes are tied elegantly with a single white bow. But let’s fact it, it’s really about what inside... mini-morsels of rich and chewy goodness.

The tiny-but-perfectly-formed squares are just the right size to alleviate any calorie counting guilt and are made from scratch using choice ingredients like 10 year old tawny port, cognac, and orange liqueur. Mari uses premium dark chocolate, Grade AA butter and Madagascar bourbon vanilla extract, with no artificial flavors or preservatives.

There are seven flavors offered year round; Classic, Classic With Nuts, Coconut, Thai Coffee, Blonde Bombshell, Heat (which has smoky ancho and chipotle peppers), and Caramel Sea Salt (topped with gourmet Cyprian sea salt), which won last year’s sofi Gold Award at the 55th Annual Summer Fancy Food Show in New York.

For the holidays, there are specials batches like The Figgy (with Black Mission fig jam), Cranberry Cognac (with cognac soaked jewel-colored dried cranberries), and Mighty Mint (which has a dash of chopped mint).

Mari’s path to brownie baker began by making her friends very happy.  Her day job was designing kitchen products for OXO Good Grips, but her hobby was baking sweets for her inner circle. Eventually, she decided to take a leap of faith and and left the design world to work at Balthazar Bakery. Within a year, she was the Director of Bakery Operations.

A brief stint took her away from baking to be the Design Director for fashion designer Cynthia Rowley’s home line at Target. But passion eventually lured her back to baking and launching her own company,  Mari’s Brownies New York. 

Look for Mari’s Brownies in these retail locations, or you can buy them from Mari’s online  And on most days, you can catch Mari at her shop at Limelight Marketplace in Chelsea. Prices start at $19 for half-dozen.