Brownies!

Before I start the “actual” post, I am pleased to announce that we have been invited to join the panel of Canadian bloggers involved with Enjoy Life foods!  We will be featuring two of their products in some upcoming posts, and will be given the opportunity to spotlight new products as they become available to the Canadian market.  We are very excited about this opportunity.

Today’s brownie recipe borrows heavily from the one in the Oh She Glows Cookbook.  I did have to make some changes to accommodate my food sensitivities, however.  This cookbook is great!  It’s vegan, but sometimes I use a vegan recipe and add meat.  Ha, ha.  It kind of defeats the purpose of a vegan cookbook, but being vegan, it cuts out dairy and eggs, so that’s a helpful start.

One of the biggest changes I made to this recipe was  to switch out the ground almonds.  I was determined to  make and eat a decent brownie!  What I came up with was…..wait for it…..ground sunflower seeds!  Granted, they can be hard to find without warnings of “may contain all allergens known to mankind”, but I found some, and they work really well.  The brownies are moist and chewy, and just….good.  I may even tack on my icing recipe to the bottom of this post, so yours can be just as tasty as mine are.

Brownies

4 tsp. ground flax

1 cup raw sunflower seeds

3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. brown rice flour

2 tbsp. arrowroot powder

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup plus 1/4 cup chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life)

1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. margarine

1 cup white sugar (I used organic)

1/4 cup non dairy beverage (I used flax beverage)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Whisk the flax together with 3 tbsp. water and set aside.

Grind the sunflower seeds into a meal.  I am blessed to have a BlendTec, and this does a fantastic job of making them the right texture.

Whisk together the ground sunflower seeds, brown rice flour, arrowroot, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda.

Melt 1/2 cup of chocolate chips together with the margarine.  When almost all the chocolate chips are melted, remove from heat and stir until smooth.  Stir into this the flax mixture, sugar, non dairy beverage and vanilla.

Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture, and stir well until combined.  Add in the remaining 1/4 cup of chocolate chips.

Spoon batter into a greased 8 x 8 pan.  Sometimes I grease and line it with parchment paper.  This time I forgot the parchment paper, and they came out of the pan just fine.  So I guess….your choice on whether you use it or not.  The batter will be quite thick, so pat down until smooth and spread to all corners of the pan.

Bake for 28-34 minutes.  Cool COMPLETELY before cutting.  This is very important if you don’t want to end up with brownie crumbs instead of squares.

 

BONUS:  Chocolate Icing

This could not be easier, but I know a lot of people who say they can’t make icing.  And I say – yes you can!

3 tbsp. margarine

1/2 tsp. vanilla

a few grains of salt (less than 1/8 tsp.)

2 cups icing sugar

3 tbsp. cocoa powder.

2-2 1/2 tbsp. non dairy beverage

Cream together the margarine, vanilla and salt.  Add in the icing sugar, and gradually add in the non dairy beverage.  Most likely you won’t need the whole amount.  Start small, and don’t get into the endless cycle of “oops – too much icing sugar, add more milk…………..oops – too much milk, add more icing sugar”.  That will ruin your icing.