Recipe: Vegan Brownies

The little girl was invited to an impromptu playdate down at the village pool this afternoon. I didn't know what to prepare since our pantry was almost empty.

Luckily, while I was searching for a brownie recipe I chanced upon this vegan brownie recipe. I had all the ingredients on hand except for eggs and this one didn't call for eggs so I got all the ingredients out and prepared to bake.

I would wish I can come up with a dessert that will require less oil  (if possible, none at all) but that will have to wait for another day.

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#Vegan #brownies for the kids swim playdate later :)

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I was a little anxious at how this experiment would turn out but in the end, it proved to me that you can never go wrong with chocolate.

The recipe did not need much tweaking but let me just type it all in here for easy reference (in case you are like me who doesn't like to jump from one page to another)

Vegan Brownies
Yields: 16 brownies
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes

What you will need:

 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
 2 cups white sugar
 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
 1/2 cup chopped dark chocolates
 1 teaspoon baking powder
 1 teaspoon salt
 1 cup water
 1 cup vegetable oil
 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I added 1 more extra vanilla in here)
 a pinch of cinnamon
 colorful sprinkles

What you need to do:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
3. Pour in water, dark chocolate, vegetable oil and vanilla; mix until well blended.
4. Spread evenly in a 9x9 inch square baking pan.
5. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until the top is no longer shiny.
6. Take out of oven when toothpick comes off clean. Add colored sprinkles on top.
7. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting into squares.

It was a hit among the kids and yayas. I even brought some for my officemates to sample the following day and they loved it too.

Recipe: Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies

Have I already mentioned I'm a dessert monster? Although I try to be very conscious of my sugar intake, dessert will always be my weakness. Luckily, my little girl never really got addicted to sugar. It probably helped that I delayed the introduction of sweets to her till she was almost a year old. We don't have to tell her to stop eating candies and chocolates. She usually just stops after a piece or two.

I hope she keeps that self control even if I've been spending a lot of time with our oven of late. My latest baking adventure has yielded this soft, chewy creation which was actually inspired by my baking idol, Maggie!

Mags and I both agreed this would probably level up if you added a few chunks of macadamia nuts. I have yet to get my hands on some macadamia nuts but my taste testers (the hubs and the little girl of course) both gave their approvals already.

Maggie's cookies looked waaaay better than the ones I baked. I didn't get the chance to bookmark the recipe she shared to me earlier so I made do with the recipe that I already had printed out from Sally's Baking Addiction.



My little girl is also visiting her lola and her cousins for a week and so I packed her a dozen of these to give as pasalubongs to her cousins. I hope they liked it!

What you will need:
1 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter (i just cut a bar of butter in half), softened to room temp
3/4 cup muscovado sugar
1 egg, at room temp, slightly whisked
1/4 cup white granulated sugar (refined sugar)
1 tbsp filled milk
2 tsps vanilla extract
2 1/2 tsps red food coloring (I used liquid)
about 80 grams of white chocolate chip cookies (you could use more, the original recipe actually called for 180grams)

ready to bake!

sometimes, i do amaze myself. all this time it's all been purely muscle power that i've been using to cream butter and sugar. so really, if you really want to learn to bake you don't have to have plenty of equipment to do it.

food color and dry ingredients added!

white chocolate chip cookies galore!

How I did it:

1. Combine all the dry ingredients - flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt (I just used a wire whisk).
2. In a separate bowl, cream the butter until smooth then add the sugar and mix thoroughly.
3. Add egg, milk, and vanilla. Mix well and add the food coloring next.
4. Continue to mix then add the dry ingredients gradually (I did this in 3 sets so I didn't have a hard time mixing everything when the dough started to stiffen. Mix in the white chocolate chips. Cover dough with plastic wrap and freeze for about 30mins (or refrigerate for at least an hour)
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (around 180 Celsius).
6. When ready to bake, take our frozen dough and cut to about 1/2 inch thick and form into a ball. Line baking pans with parchment paper and place each of the cookie dough balls about 2 inches apart. I added colored sprinkles to some of the dough since the colors will look attractive to the kids.
7. Bake for about 12-15 mins (top most layer of my oven).
8. Take our from oven after baking time is finished. Let cookies cool on the sheets for around 5 mins and then transfer to wire rack to cool.