i love about Brownies in a single vegan recipe on the one hand you have a lot of vegan brownies that are dry and crumbly and kind of like too flowery flowery is that a word too much flour and then on the other hand you have some vegan brownies that are too oily because they try to make up for the lack of moisture and that is what i made earlier today as a test brownie it’s one of those like generic recipes on the first page of google when you search for vegan brownies it’s not really fudgy it’s actually very cakey kind of like chocolate cake and it feels kind of flat and one-dimensional doesn’t have that shiny kind of crinkly top that’s super gorgeous nope one second so i’ve been working on my own vegan brownie recipe and today we’re going to put it to the test against this standard issue vegan brownie and have some non-vegan unbiased taste testers compare them and see what they think it reminds me of something i would get a gas station not pleasant all right so for this brownie recipe it’s 10 ingredients nothing super complicated but as you can see from the ingredient list these are very classic brownies obviously there’s no dairy or eggs in this brownie

but it’s also not one of those vegan brownies where i tell you it’s the best vegan brownie but then you’re like it tastes like black beans there’s no sweet potatoes in here there’s no oats in here there’s no zucchini in here these are classic fudgy indulgent brownies made for adults they’re adult brownies i’m chopping up a bunch of dark chocolate about six ounces worth and the reason we’re using dark chocolate instead of say baking unsweetened chocolate is because if you want the highest quality best tasting brownie you got to use really good quality chocolate so i’ve got like 70 72 dark chocolate if you like your brownies even more adult like you could use something closer to an 80 dark chocolate and if you want something a little sweeter a little less grown up you could try like 62 to 65 we’ll set this aside for now in addition to the melted chocolate we’re also going to use Cocoa Powder the reason i’m using both is that if you make brownies with just cocoa powder you tend to get brownies that are on the cakey side if you use just melted chocolate you tend to get really dense gooey fudgy brownies which i do love and then if you use both of them though you get the best of both worlds so you get fudgy but still chewy cocoa powder is pretty lumpy lumpy so we’re going to sift it for a lumpless lump free brownie batter alright so this is 7 tablespoons of cocoa powder

i want to specify that it is dutch processed cocoa powder the reason i’m using dutch processed cocoa powder instead of regular natural cocoa powder is it has a really pure intense chocolatey flavor that you really can’t get elsewhere and it goes down a little bit smoother it makes a huge difference in these brownies to our cocoa powder we’re going to add some all purpose flour i’m just going to measure it using my scale if you don’t have a scale though do not do this where you just like scoop it in there you’re going to over measure your flour and with brownies especially you’re going to get dry brownies which nobody likes so instead you want to spoon your flour into the cup like so when you get to the top or almost to the top you’re going to level it off with a knife this is called spoon and level and that is how you should measure flour for all baking unless you have scale then you can just do what i’m doing which is just add it by the spoon and you don’t have to dirty a measuring cup and sift the flour right into the cocoa powder most classic brownie recipes actually use quite a bit less flour than we’re using today but they also have eggs which provide quite a bit of structure and since we’re not using eggs it is important to use a little bit more flour than you’d expect so that the brownies don’t fall apart for our egg substitute we’ve got some aquafaba aquafaba if you’re not familiar is just chickpea liquid the stuff that comes in the can and i normally like to use it in cakes and banana bread things like that to make the baked good fluffy and light for brownies though we don’t want fluffy and light throw a lot of trial and error maybe like six rounds of testing brownies i learned that if you whip aquafaba for several minutes with some sugar you’re gonna really be able to mimic the structure of eggs and also you’re gonna get that really elusive shiny crinkly crust that you rarely see in vegan brownies when you whip the aquafaba and sugar together for several minutes it starts to get thick and glossy and fluffy you’ll start to see these waves around the two and a half to three minute mark and that mixture is going to mimic the consistency of eggs and give us that really nice shiny top i know i’m going to get some questions about substitutes like do i have to use aquafaba can i use a different flour do i have to use vegan butter and my answer is you got to use all the ingredients here i’ve tested this recipe many times baking is a very precise science and you can’t just like willy-nilly swap out whatever you want so if you want the best vegan brownies please stick to the ingredients here i also haven’t tested it with other ingredients so i don’t know if it’ll work now we’re going to add a few ingredients to our aquafaba sugar mixture

some vanilla extract a generous amount a tablespoon some fine sea salt about three quarters teaspoon and my favorite ingredient espresso powder coffee has this really magical way of enhancing the chocolatiness of chocolate without tasting like coffee it just layers in a depth of flavor that you wouldn’t get otherwise if you don’t have espresso powder you can use instant coffee powder but use maybe just a little bit more because it’s less strong in flavor we’re switching to a silicon spatula and folding these ingredients into the whipped aquafaba sugar mixture the last thing we’re going to do is melt our dark chocolate with our butter our vegan butter obviously and the reason we’re using vegan butter instead of say vegetable oil or coconut oil is that a lot of vegan brownies can be too oily like greasy vegan butter does not do that in this recipe and it also adds that nice buttery taste we’re melting this dark chocolate and butter over a double boiler all you need is a saucepan add a couple inches of water bring it to a simmer and then you need a bowl that can be nestled into the saucepan you don’t want it to touch the water because it’ll get too hot using melted chocolate is going to give us really dense rich brownies with a deep chocolatey taste and we’re just going to gently melt the chocolate and the butter together whisking occasionally until it’s super smooth and luscious you can also melt this in the microwave but just be sure to do it in intervals at 30 seconds and stir after each one all right all the individual components are prepped so we’re going to pour the melted butter chocolate situation into the whipped aquafaba you’re going to want to scrape up as much of this goodness as you can if a little gets in your fingers or in your mouth that’s also okay fold the melted chocolate into the aquafaba mixture with a spatula it makes this really beautiful swirly pattern be gentle fold with a spatula let’s fold the flour and cocoa powder into our melted chocolate until it’s just combined definitely don’t use a mixer for this and don’t be surprised if the batter is really thick it should be that way definitely thicker than a standard brownie batter and it’s gonna bake up beautifully almost forgot very important chocolate chips if this wasn’t chocolaty and decadent enough we’re going to add in some chocolate chips these are dark chocolate chips keeping with the dark chocolate theme if you can find vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips you can use those as well but you might want to cut back on the sugar by a few tablespoons chocolate chips are kind of a must in brownies in my opinion i love biting into a brownie that’s fudgy and gooey but also has a little chocolate nugget hiding in there all right we’ve got our 8 by 8 inch baking pan i think that’s like 20 centimeters by 20 centimeters and it’s important to line it with parchment paper so it’s easy to pull out the brownies at the end but also so that you don’t have to grease it with any additional oil or butter because we don’t need any additional oil or butter i mean come on look at this batter she is gorgeous she’s a she obviously smooth out the batter get it nice and evenly into the corners and these are going to go in a preheated oven at 350 degrees fahrenheit for 35-ish minutes maybe up to 38 minutes but every home oven is different so if your oven is not calibrated really recommend using an oven thermometer for perfectly baked brownies bake them until a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs if you get some liquid batter they likely need about five more minutes all right the brownies have been resting in the pan for 20 minutes then i pulled them out of the pan using the parchment paper let them cool for another 20 to 30 minutes i know it’s really hard to wait for brownies to cool because it smells so good but if you want clean slices if you want the brownies to be thoroughly cooked you gotta wait it’s worth it i promise this is probably the most perfect brownie slice i’ve ever created produced birthed look at this ridiculous it’s gotta be eaten by me this brownie is possibly too good to describe in words so let’s go see what our mystery taste testers think let’s go time for a taste test are you guys ready to eat some brownies born ready this is my sister this is my dad this is my brother-in-law brownie number one first brownie number one reminds me of something about a gas station not pleasant it is not chewy it is a bland taste i didn’t like it i mean i i didn’t hate it as much as that but i mean i didn’t say fantastic my father brownie should be rich with a lot of chocolate and a lot of flavor it should have dimples and crevices it should be flaking off a little bit this man knows a good brownie.

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