Chocolatey Fudgey Vegan Goodness

On my last real day of March break, my love brought home a little present for me: a compact little cookbook called "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Since then, I haven't stopped looking through it during every spare moment I have, or every time I feel like procrastinating. It's just so distracting! Pages of easy-looking recipes and alluring photos of delicious looking vegan treats .. how was I supposed to get any work done at all?

My only choice was to break down and bake something. I chose one of the first thing that caught my eye when I was skimming through the book for the very first time: vegan chocolate brownies. Within the brownie section there was lots to chose from: cocoa brownies, espresso fudge brownies, simple blondies, spiced sweet potato blondies, peanut butter blondies .. choosing was definitely a challenge. I ended up combining two of the chocolatey brownie recipes together and my result was a fudgy, dense-but-not-heavy, very very chocoately brownie. Total heaven.



And the secret ingredients? First, there was tofu -- yup, the protein power of blended silken tofu gave these brownies an amazingly fudgey texture and kept them nice and moist. Second, there were squares of Trader Joe's dark chocolate. That's right, Toronto! Not only did my love bring me back a wonderful cookbook, but he also scored 3 tins of the mysterious Trader Joe's chocolate -- mysterious because the blog world is full of Trader Joe's followers, yet there are none to be found here in Toronto. I didn't ask, I just dove right in and melted down a few wedges to enhance the chocoatelyness of the cocoa powder. The brownie was so delicious that it even fooled some junk-food-loving 13 year-olds. Have a found a healthy brownie ?? You be the judge!


Chocolate Vegan Brownies
adapted from "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.

1/4 cup of canola oil
2 oz of bitter sweet chocolate
6 oz of soft, silken tofu
1/4 cup of soy
3/4 cup of brown sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
1 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 cup of natural, unsweetened cocoa powder
a pinch of salt

1. Melt the chocolate with the oil over low heat, stirring constantly. Set aside.

2. In a blender of mini-chopper, blend the tofu and the soy until smooth the fluffy. Remove to a large bowl.

3. Add the chocolate mixture, sugar and vanilla and whisk to combine.

4. Sift in the cornstarch, baking powder and cocoa powder and stir gently. All the flour and salt and mix until just combined. At this point you could add in whatever extras you like: chocolate chips, chopped nuts .. go for it.

5. Spread the mixture out onto a square baking pan (non-stick or lined with parchment) and bake in a 325 degree oven for about 25-30 minutes, or until a it has puffed up a little in the centre, and is firm to touch. Cool, cut into squares and fool your pickiest chocolate lovers.