basic brownies

I know brownie baking is very much a practice of personal preference, and there's no pleasing everyone. I'm a corner piece gal myself. We made a double batch for the Food Championship aftermath lunch, and they were just the right amount of fudgy and cakey to please most palates. I suppose the palate also adapts in the face of free brownies, but I think they were pretty solid by any standard.

This recipe uses one of my favorite baking with chocolate tricks by incorporating coffee into the batter. Nevermind that I've never worked a coffeemaker before and had to ask one of my cohorts to do it for me. Grad school is about discovery, right? The astringency of the brew balances the richness of the chocolate and adds a nice warm undertone of something good you can't quite put your finger on. The use of brown sugar instead of the standard white is a nice touch. This recipe happens to be vegan, too.

The brownies are fairly sticky, so I highly recommend lining your pan with parchment paper, and maybe spraying it, too.

Basic Brownies
Adapted from a source I can no longer find

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c cocoa powder
1 1/2 c brown sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

3/4 c coffee
3/4 c soy milk (I use unsweetened)
1/2 c canola oil

3/4 c semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven 350 F.

Mix all the dry ingredients (brown sugar included) together. Combine the coffee, soy milk, and canola oil. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients while stirring. Throw in the chocolate chips or any other brownie flair of your choice.

Pour into parchment lined 9x9-in pan. Bake for about 25 minutes, or to the fudginess of your liking.

happy (almost) hypo-allergenic halloween!

In effort to stick it to the candy corporations, but mostly for amusement, late night baking party ensued to churn out nut-free, dairy-free, egg-free vegan cookies for Halloween. Hopefully the kids don't egg us. Oh, the irony.

We used Earth Balance margarine in place of butter, and either banana or pumpkin in place of eggs. The banana cookies were very adult. They were crisp, delicately banana flavored in a non-Runts kinda way, and would have been great with ice cream. I would totally make them again, but more fancy schmancy. The pumpkin spice cookies were soft, slightly spicy, and nom nom nom. They had great texture like any chewy cookie.

If you want to try your hand at vegan cookies, or happen to be out of eggs or butter, follow approximately the following:

Heat oven to 350F. Cream 1 cup Earth Balance and 1 1/2 c unrefined sugar together till fluffy. Beat in either 1 banana or 1/2 c pumpkin, 1 tsp vanilla, some nutmeg, ground ginger, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. Add 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour. Beat for a few minutes to build up some gluten. Chill dough in fridge for a bit if you have time. Or if you are dead tired, forge on!

Scoop out tablespoons of dough. Bake about 14 minutes. While you're waiting, wrestle with Word for about an hour making ingredient tags for the cookies.