Before I learned to bake from scratch, brownies were something that came from a red box to which you added wet ingredients and baked.  You know what I mean. At the time, unless they came from that boxed mix, no brownies would ever be as good to me. That signature chocolate flaky crust was how I could tell them apart from any other brownies from a mix. And brownies from a bakery, forget it. Boxed or nothing was my motto. Even when I became a good baker, I still only liked my brownies from a mix. But one day I found a recipe that intrigued me. It used over 2 1/2 pounds of chocolate per batch of brownies. These were everything a brownie should be: dense, rich, moist and of course, chocolatey. I played around with it and this became my go-to recipe for brownies.  Bye bye to the red box.

After Ethan became vegan, I stopped making my once famous brownies. In addition to all the chocolate, they were filled with eggs and butter.  Lots of eggs and butter.  Thinking back now on them, they were horrible from both a health perspective and an ethical perspective. Sadly, this was not a recipe that I could veganize. I tried using box mixes that didn’t contain any dairy and didn’t require adding eggs. They were always very oily and not good at all.  So, I was resigned to live the rest of my life without brownies.

But something in me kept nagging.  That little voice saying, “Ok, stop trying to reproduce those old brownies. Think outside the box” (pun intended).  I started looking at vegan brownie recipes to see how different people made them. Some were really dry. Some lacking in a strong chocolate flavor. Eventually, after much trial and error, I figured out a brownie recipe that pleased me. On the scale of fugdey to cake-like, these are more on the cake-like side. While I prefer a more fudgey brownie, these satisfy my craving until I come up with an even better recipe.  While not as heavy and dense and my old ones, these are just as moist and chocolatey. So bake up a batch, pour a glass of your favorite non-dairy milk and enjoy.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Baking Time: 30-35 minutes
Servings: 18 large or 36 small brownies

Ingredients:

1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup maple syrup
½ cup non-dairy milk
4 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1 cup all-purpose flour, divided
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
2 TBL baking powder
1½ tsp. salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan and set aside.

2.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, maple syrup, non-dairy milk, and vanilla.

3.  In a small bowl, toss the chocolate chips with 2 TBL of all purpose flour and set aside.

4.  In a large bowl, sift together the whole wheat flour, the remaining all purpose flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

5.  Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix to thoroughly combine.  Stir in the chocolate chips.

6.  Pour the batter into the pan and smooth out the top with a moistened spatula.

7.  Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Baking away… Almost done!!!

8.  Transfer the pan to a cooling rack. When completely cool, cut into squares.

Still a little warm, so the chocolate chips are all melty.