Vegan Brownies - Feb. 19
On Thursday last week Lila, Alison and I met at my place, and settled in with a modified recipe for vegan brownies, and to discuss our cafe idea.
We decided to make two batches, one with the vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips, one without. We used two aluminum foil 9x13 pans I happened to find in my cupboard, in order to ensure that any difference in the brownies was only the ingredients, not due to differences in pans. (I did have two "real" 9x13 pans, but only one in condition to do baking - the other is old and greasy and I only use to bake frozen fish fillets).
I had all the ingredients out on the counter, lined up in the order the recipe called for, and pulled out two mixing bowls. We took turns going down the line, measuring and scooping the ingredients into the two bowls. We took turns mixing, and as we added the wet ingredients, I let Lila and Alison take over while I put away the ingredients, a "clean as you go" effort.
The recipe, for those who are interested, was a variation that used a mix of canola oil and unsweetened applesauce in place of egg. We also added a hint of almond extract along with the vanilla extract. We realized the disposable baking pans didn't have a lot of structure to them as we went to put the brownies in the oven, and had to be very careful at not spilling them and not burning ourselves as we positioned them on the oven rack.
The modified recipe said 23-25 minutes for ooey-gooey delicious brownies. The base recipe said 25-30 minutes. We started at 20 minutes, then added 3 minutes, and another 2 minutes, and took the brownies out to cool. The edges were solidifying nicely, but when I tried cutting them, there was a large, seemingly unbaked spot in the middle of each pan, though it was a larger area on the brownies with the chocolate chips. We put the brownies back in the oven to bake another stretch of time (I can't recall if it was 3 or 5 minutes, in the end).
The edges dried out, but once again, the middle was still more pudding-like than brownie like (a lot more than "ooey-gooey" - more like "this needs a spoon"). We discussed possible solutions (playing with the recipe to get a more solid consistency, just selling the the middle as brownie pudding (there is no egg, so no worries of undercookedness), using square pans, etc). We also discussed how to improve the taste of the recipe, by adding other flavors, etc.
By the end of the night, I was brownied out (tasting both pudding-like and more solid brownies from each of the 2 pans after each of the rounds of baking = a lot of brownie). The next day we took our creation, including the brownie-pudding, to our gaming session. It was received well, and we discovered that the almond extract really was more noticeable after the confections had sat for a day.
I'm excited by our first experiment, and on re-visiting brownies - to see how we can improve the recipe, though not for a while. This week we are either working on cupcakes or cookies (determined by a thumb war between Lila and Alison - just kidding - they each are getting ingredients for one of them, and I guess we should figure out which we are trying this week, and which next week). Anyway, it gives us some time away from the brownies (though, I still have some of the brownie-pudding in a container at home, even after giving away over a pan of brownies to my gaming group).
We decided to make two batches, one with the vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips, one without. We used two aluminum foil 9x13 pans I happened to find in my cupboard, in order to ensure that any difference in the brownies was only the ingredients, not due to differences in pans. (I did have two "real" 9x13 pans, but only one in condition to do baking - the other is old and greasy and I only use to bake frozen fish fillets).
I had all the ingredients out on the counter, lined up in the order the recipe called for, and pulled out two mixing bowls. We took turns going down the line, measuring and scooping the ingredients into the two bowls. We took turns mixing, and as we added the wet ingredients, I let Lila and Alison take over while I put away the ingredients, a "clean as you go" effort.
The recipe, for those who are interested, was a variation that used a mix of canola oil and unsweetened applesauce in place of egg. We also added a hint of almond extract along with the vanilla extract. We realized the disposable baking pans didn't have a lot of structure to them as we went to put the brownies in the oven, and had to be very careful at not spilling them and not burning ourselves as we positioned them on the oven rack.
The modified recipe said 23-25 minutes for ooey-gooey delicious brownies. The base recipe said 25-30 minutes. We started at 20 minutes, then added 3 minutes, and another 2 minutes, and took the brownies out to cool. The edges were solidifying nicely, but when I tried cutting them, there was a large, seemingly unbaked spot in the middle of each pan, though it was a larger area on the brownies with the chocolate chips. We put the brownies back in the oven to bake another stretch of time (I can't recall if it was 3 or 5 minutes, in the end).
The edges dried out, but once again, the middle was still more pudding-like than brownie like (a lot more than "ooey-gooey" - more like "this needs a spoon"). We discussed possible solutions (playing with the recipe to get a more solid consistency, just selling the the middle as brownie pudding (there is no egg, so no worries of undercookedness), using square pans, etc). We also discussed how to improve the taste of the recipe, by adding other flavors, etc.
By the end of the night, I was brownied out (tasting both pudding-like and more solid brownies from each of the 2 pans after each of the rounds of baking = a lot of brownie). The next day we took our creation, including the brownie-pudding, to our gaming session. It was received well, and we discovered that the almond extract really was more noticeable after the confections had sat for a day.
I'm excited by our first experiment, and on re-visiting brownies - to see how we can improve the recipe, though not for a while. This week we are either working on cupcakes or cookies (determined by a thumb war between Lila and Alison - just kidding - they each are getting ingredients for one of them, and I guess we should figure out which we are trying this week, and which next week). Anyway, it gives us some time away from the brownies (though, I still have some of the brownie-pudding in a container at home, even after giving away over a pan of brownies to my gaming group).