Brownie sagas!

Brown rice banana brownies!

One day earlier this summer I went into Capers because I had a couple of hours and wanted to chill out over a coffee.  As I was ordering my mocha (decaf with almond milk!), I noticed that Capers carried vegan spelt brownies*.  I was over the moon!  A real, cake-y, chewy, brownie I could eat!  Now, a brownie + a mocha ended up being way too much chocolate, but it didn't matter, I was inspired - if Capers could do it, so could I!  It was time to try making brownies!

*(Note for those of you who want to try the store-bought version - Capers in Kits no longer sells them, but Whole Foods on Cambie has them in their bakery)

My intentions were great, and I set off googling recipes for spelt brownies, which I could then vegan-ize.  The results: a lot of failures.  This baking endeavor, more than any other, reminded me that allergen-free baking really is an experiment, and often it can go very, very wrong.  Why so disastrous?  The answer: no eggs.  Brownies rely so much more on eggs than flour for their chewy texture - most recipes call for two eggs but only 1/2 cup of flour.  Sometimes, vegan substitutes just don't work, as I quickly proved.
I started with this recipe, which has the novelty of being designed to bake in a loaf pan.  (The general theory being "if there are brownies, I'm going to eat them, so for the sake of my waist line I should put portion control straight in the recipe design")  I used Fleischmann's margarine and Ener-G egg replacer instead of butter and eggs, respectively.  When I pulled the brownies out of the oven at the end of the 25 minute baking period, it looked like bubbling liquid and my toothpick (or, well, chopstick) texture came out totally coated.  I let them bake for awhile longer (I can't remember how long, but probably upwards of 20 minutes), until I concluded the bubbling wasn't going to stop, and finally took them out and left them on the counter as a complete failure.  As they cooled, they finally did ultimately solidify.  They were super flat (less than an inch high), and tasted rather like hard candy.  The bottom was burnt/caramelized (the result of my extra baking, I'm sure), and they certainly weren't anything like brownies, but they tasted like chocolate so I ate them anyway.  I think the lack of proper eggs was part of the problem, and I think buttering both the loaf pan and the foil resulted in far too much oil in the mix. (Also, Fleischmann's margarine is very very soft, which didn't help matters.)

So, I moved onto recipe #2.  I adjusted the measurements so that I could once again bake them in a loaf pan, because I didn't have an 8"x8" pan on hand.  This time, I used flax seed in place of eggs, and Fleischmann's margarine again.  These brownies actually baked up like brownies, but without the lifting power of eggs they were still very, very flat.  They also crumbled completely, and had to be eaten with a fork rather than with fingers.  And they tasted very strongly of flax.  So, an improvement, but hardly a party-worthy brownie.

At this point, I pretty much gave up.  That is, until I was searching for cookie recipes, and came across the brown rice flour baking contest I mentioned yesterday.  One of the recipes submitted to the contest was for vegan brown rice flour banana brownies.  I had to try this recipe!  Not only was it properly gluten-free (not just wheat-free), but it was also vegan-as-written, so I didn't have to play around with sub-par egg substitutes.  This recipe uses banana and applesauce in place of the eggs; this also cuts down on the amount of fat and sugar that need to be added.  So out I went to buy bananas (twice.  I forgot to tell my roommates I was saving them.  Oops).  As it turned out, I got invited to a potluck by one of my old labs, so what a better opportunity to test out a brownie recipe?

The only substitution I made was sucanut in place of the sugar (and I used probably closer to a 1/3 of a cup than a 1/2 cup of sugar; I always decrease the sugar in a recipe, just on principle).  I baked the brownies for 34 minutes - they probably could have stood another couple of minutes in the oven, but they weren't underdone.  Then off to the barbecue I went, just hoping that they'd stand up to the taste test.

The result: they were very moist, cakey, and chewy, just as a good brownie should be.  They definitely tasted like banana, but banana and chocolate is a pretty tasty combination.  And while they were not necessary the #1 best brownie I've ever tasted, they definitely would fall in a top 5 list.  More importantly, it was not in any way evident that these brownies were made with rice flour (no graininess) or were otherwise "special".  And, they're pretty darn healthy, what with all the fruit and the whole grains.  I would highly recommend these, for allergic and non-allergic alike. They are a great contribution to a potluck for people who can't eat a lot of baked goods, too, and want to have at least one friendly dessert.

Next time, I'm going to try using a bit more applesauce and a bit less banana to minimize the banana flavour.  I'm also going to try adding chopped nuts, but that's just a personal preference for brownies.  Any way round, this recipe more than exceeds my vote of approval!