Vegan Brownies

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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. ;)}

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Servings: 16 -24 brownies

Vegan Brownies

Total Time:

45 mins

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

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 4 ounces about 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate — melted
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips — Ghiradelli brand

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x9” pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.
2. 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.
3. Pour into prepared pan and bake 25-28 minutes. Cool before cutting.
4. Top with a sprinkling of powdered sugar for a pretty presentation!

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.

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