Seriously Fudgy Brownies: Vegan, Gluten-Free, Soy-Free, Corn-Free, Agave-Sweetened. Oh and Broken Promises.

Aghhh.
So I have a lot of things I want to do, and I actually promised a certain somebody I would post a certain something, but I NEED to do this, now.



The following recipe has a very long but necessary introduction. Scroll down for the recipe. If you're impatient and easily bored like me. ;)

So, my mom has a wheat allergy, and you have no idea how many gluten-free brownie recipes I have seen on the Internet. It's dizzying. There are also MANY vegan brownie recipes, most of them not gluten-free. And you can bet (your bottom dollar...) that 99.9999% of those are overfilled with refined sugars.

Sometimes, however, you come upon the rare gems like the gluten free brownies at elanaspantry.com. I came across this and immediately went yesyesyesyesyesyes FINALLY.
Oh wait, she's not vegan. There are eggs in that recipe. *pouts*

But I also knew that the lovely people in the comments would no doubt be having a lively debate about ingredient substitution, so I popped down there and saw that, yes, another vegan had been wondering how to veganize this, and voila! they succeeded. OMG YES.
Oh wait, no, my dad and sister are allergic to nuts, and this has almond butter.
NO WORRIES. Peanut butter to the rescue. (And if you're allergic to peanuts, try sunflower seed butter! Never have myself, but I'm curious to see how it would turn out.)

And then I tried the recipe. I liked it. A lot. But the tester of all testers, my dad, said that they were too dry. Or something to that effect.
So my amazing mother suggested that we take a page from Isa Chandra Moskowitz' book, and try adding in some blueberries and jam. BEST. SUGGESTION. EVER.

Without further ado:

Fudgy Vegan (Gluten-Free) Brownies

• 1 16 oz jar peanut butter/almond butter/seed butter
• 3 table spoons flax seed meal/chia seed powder
• 9 table spoons and 3/4 cup water or vegan milk
  
• 1/2 cup agave
• 1 table spoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup jam (I have used blackberry and strawberry, any kind of sweet jam is fine!)

Optional Extras (but both are great if available!):
2/3 cup dark chocolate chips

2/3 cup blueberries (or any kind of berry, really)

1. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flax meal, water, agave, and vanilla, until of any egg-y consistency.
3. Scrape the peanut butter into a large mixing bowl and blend with a hand mixer until creamy.
4. Scrape the flax mixture in with the peanut butter and mix well with the hand mixer. If the mixture clumps up, you can start to add extra water/vegan milk, 1/4 cup at a time.
5. Add salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder, and blend well.
6. Fold in the jam, chocolate chips, and berries until well distributed.
7. Spread into the baking pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.
8. ENJOY (in moderation.)
   

First post!!

Hi new blog readers!
After saying that I should TOTALLY start a food blog for about a month now, I'm finally doing it!
So I actually have a ton of things I've been storing in my brain that I am going to write about (a delicious vegan dinner at an underground supper club, vegan and gluten free brownies, a trip to my mom's garden plot, etc...) but right now all I have the mental energy to do is to list off some food related things in my day.
So...
-This morning, I made raw brazil nut milk! I got the recipe out of Sarma Melngailis' and Matthew Kenney's Raw Food, Real World, which is a really beautiful book full of both intricate gourmet recipes, and also some pretty simple ones that 16-year olds such as myself can follow. :P
(Oh PS the "milk" was GOOD, and very good when paired with leftover brownies.)
-Don't worry, I didn't eat brownies for breakfast! Ok, not just brownies. My mom made a delicious green smoothie for me, made with spinach and strawberries, and bananas (I think... I wasn't actually present for the blending...), which sounds like a very strange combination but it is so good. And good for you. But mostly just good.
-For lunch, I basically had two pieces of bread (funnily enough, the butts of a loaf of homemad gluten free (vegan) bread and normal homemade bread, both topped with half an avocado, mashed and with salt and pepper, a great idea I got from Gena at Choosing Raw.
-I went to Harvard Square today, and before I went to see the amazingly awesome Harvard Museum of Natural History, I went to a gourmet foods shop called Cardullo's, which kind of reminded me very much of the many souvenir shops which I visited while in England, but better. There were almost two shelves of high-quality chocolate (I'm a bit of a chocoholic, as you may discover later...). I diligently checked the labels for dark chocolate, then checked to make sure there were no hidden milk ingredients. I finally settled on the "Calindia Bar," a 65% Venezuelan cacao bar with green cardamom, walnuts, dried plums,from Vosges Haut Chocolat, a pretty fancy label for a bar of chocolate that mainly reminded me of some kind of icky fragrant soap. And for $8.99, (!!!) definitely not worth it. And now I have some kind of unsatisfying sugar high. Hmm.
-On to slightly tastier things, I also (attempted) to make peach cupcakes with blueberry filling and coconut icing in preparation for a vegan bakeoff I will be participating in this Saturday in Somerville at the Papercut Zine Library. The actually cupcakes were quite good (even my picky 5-year old brother loved them), and the blueberry filling rocked, but the frosting was just not working. I've been trying to make things that don't have any refined cane sugar of any kind, and it's been pretty easy for most things, because I can just substitute agave or maple syrup, but the one thing that has really stumped me is FROSTING. Ugh. I can't tell you how many recipes I've looked through, tested, and gagged at, in the pursuit of that elusively thick, creamy, but not too buttercream-y, frosting. Today I tried a recipe I found online, using coconut flour, and it really just sucked. Way too sugar-y tasting and it did not get thick enough AT ALL. Next project: peach/blueberry muffins.

Ok, this post was way longer than I thought it would be. Hope I didn't bore you. I promise there will be photos in the next one. :)