Vegan Brownies

Wait! Don’t run away. These aren’t going to bite you. More than likely, you’re going to bite them. Devour them.

I’m not Vegan (really? you ask sarcastically). I honestly don’t think I could be, even for just a few days. Cheese is a food group, am I right?

I used to be scared of the word “vegan” as applied to baking. Nothing without butter and milk can ever taste good! Boy, was I wrong. Averie and Sally have both shown me you can make vegan versions of your favorite desserts, so when the opportunity presented itself, I wanted to give it a go.

At Christmas, I am in charge of assembling cookie boxes for all the teachers at school. Members of my committee deliver dozens and dozens of cookies to my house and I sort them into pretty boxes. One of the teachers at school is vegan…which makes me not want to deliver her a box of Christmas cookies laden with butter, eggs, and milk chocolate. While she has told me in the past she’ll break her rule once in awhile for a cookie here and there, a whole big box of something you don’t usually eat isn’t very Christmassy.

So I decided to go vegan, if only for one recipe.

I, of course, went to Pinterest and found a few promising recipes. More often than not, the recipe called for some sort of flour or ingredient I had either never heard of or didn’t want to buy for just one pan of brownies. Then I came across my Zucchini Brownie recipe. And I remembered…it doesn’t have eggs. The brownies themselves don’t have butter.

Now, I could have just made those brownies and called it a day, but that’s not how I roll. Instead, I changed them up a little. I took out the zucchini and added applesauce instead. You can’t taste the applesauce, and it gives the brownies good texture. The original recipe calls for cocoa powder, but I wanted to amp up the chocolate flavor, since I was skipping the (butter-ladden) frosting. I added melted unsweetened chocolate and some semi-sweet chocolate chips to the batter. (Ghiradelli brand semi-sweet chocolate chips are vegan. I checked!)

The result? A fudgy, chewy, chocolatey delicious brownie. You’d never know they were vegan, and you’d never know they had applesauce in them. Now, they still have oil and sugar…so they aren’t totally guilt-free…but oil is better than butter, right?

{Please don’t answer that.}

So the moral of the story is…try something new…you might like it.

{I meant in baking. Y’all know I’m not trying new food. I don’t roll that way. ;)}

Vegan Brownies

These Vegan Brownies have no eggs or dairy in them and you'd never know it. They turn out SUPER fudgy!

4.5 from 2 votes

Total Time 45 minutes

Yield 16 -24 brownies

Serving Size

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Ingredients

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 4 ounces about 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate melted
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x9” pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.
• Stir together oil and sugar. Stir in vanilla, cocoa, and applesauce. Add melted chocolate and salt, stir until smooth. Slowly stir in flour. Add chocolate chips.
• Pour into prepared pan and bake 25-28 minutes. Cool before cutting.
• Top with a sprinkling of powdered sugar for a pretty presentation!

Nutritional information not guaranteed to be accurate

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Brownies are my #2 to pie. Check out my Brownie Pinboard or these other fab brownie recipes:

 Zucchini Brownies

Oreo Truffle Brownies

 Peanut Butter Brownies

Lightened Up Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownies by Kitchen Meets Girl
Turtle Brownies by Sugar & Spice
Browned Butter Brownies by Something Swanky

All text and images © DOROTHY KERN for Crazy for Crust. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words, or link back to this post for the recipe. Disclaimer: Nutrition information shown is not guaranteed to be accurate.

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Published on: January 9, 2013