Well it has been a very long time since I have been on here. Life just seems to have ticked along and without any Infant Massage course mamas to nourish I haven’t really been doing that much baking.

It is the first time I have had lots of allergies in the class so my planned chocolate cookies were out and I needed to find a good alternative. Start the internet search for something just as chocolatey! Thankfully Loving it Vegan came to the rescue with their awesome Vegan Gluten Free Brownie recipe
I have to say that this is the best brownie I have had in a long time – both before and after becoming vegan. Even the non-vegans in and around the house were fighting to get a piece of this delicious stuff 😉 While it is vegan and gluten free it is far, far, far from being sugar free! Probably best baked when you have a crowd to feed as it is very hard to resist having ‘just one more piece’.

I haven’t made any changes to this recipe however as there is quite a lot of ads and writing before the recipe appears on Loving it Vegan, I thought I would share it here as I used it and highlight some key parts.
The original blog post has both cup and weight measurements however I found that my NZ cup measures didn’t equal the South African weights given. For best results I just went with weights which is what I’ll share below along with the NZ options for great vegan chocolate ….. Whittakers of course 🙂
Another thing I learnt when trialling this recipe was that you need a tin that can separate (expandable ones are perfect). The brownie is very dense and trying to remove it from the tin only resulted in ripped paper and broken up brownie …. much to themselves delight I must say. Thankfully I had one that I picked up in a second hand shop ages ago that expands from a square tin to a rectangle. If you can’t find one or don’t have one then the circular tins with the removable bottom would be the best bet.
The last bit of vital information is to know the actual temperature of your oven. When I first cooked this brownie it came out a bit too gooey so taking the advice from in the blog I got my trusty oven thermometer out – thanks Linette 🙂 – and checked where things were at. The inside oven temp was about 30C below what the dial said so once I cranked it up a bit and retested we were good to go. Of course you can just bake it a bit longer too 🙂
So without anymore chatter onto the recipe ……
Vegan GF brownie
- 272gm GF flour (I used Edmonds)
- 84gm cocoa powder
- 400gm white sugar
- 1.5 tsp Baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 Tb instant coffee
- 240ml soy buttermilk (240ml regular soy milk and 1Tb fresh lemon juice combined and left to curdle)
- 240ml coconut oil (melted)
- 1tsp vanilla essence
- 88gm vegan chocolate chunks (Whittakers Dark Ghana smashed up)
- 88gm vegan chocolate chips (Pak n Save have these)
– Pre heat the oven to 180 C (check your oven temp and adjust if necessary)
– Mix the soy milk and lemon juice and leave to curdle
– In a separate bowl combine all the sugar, flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder and mix well
– Add melted coconut oil and vanilla essence to the dry ingredients and mix until well combined
– Add buttermilk and mix well
– Add chocolate chips and chocolate chunks. Mix well.
– Pour into a lined square tin (preferably one that you can separate)
– Bake for 40 mins or until the top cracks and only thing on the cake tester is possibly chocolate.
– Leave to cool for 15 mins before removing from the tin then put on a cooling rack.
– RESIST the urge to slice and eat now …. it is so much better completely cold – we know, we tried 🙂
– When the brownie is completely cooled then cut into pieces with a hot knife.
Well that is it for this week ….. see you next time I’m inspired to get into the kitchen 🙂
Arohanui
Y