The Vegan Baker: Gluten free dark chocolate brownies
Home » Blog » Miyuki McGuffie » The Vegan Baker: Gluten free dark chocolate browniesThis week blogger/baker Miyuki McGuffie tries her hand at accommodating an increasingly common dietary restriction: gluten intolerance.
Image by Miyuki McGuffie
It’s easy to presume that when someone’s diet is “restricted”, they can’t share into the same familiar foods as the rest of us. This is far from true. I have never baked gluten-free until now, but I was pleased with the results and will endeavour to cover more gluten free recipes in this column.
There’s not much to say about these brownies other than that they were well received by all, and extremely appreciated by the gluten-free friend I had in mind while making them.
The original recipe had 2 cups of sugar, which I thought was too much so I’ve halved the amount here. Feel free to up the sugar content if that’s what you like.
Fresh out of the oven the brownies were moist and velvety. Once they’d sat for a few hours they took on a fudgier texture. They are also suitable for freezing.
I topped half of my brownie with a handful of roughly chopped walnuts but you can add them to the mixture itself if you want. As a shout out to my current country of residence I topped the other half with 3 tablespoons of peanut butter.
Peanut butter and chocolate are a common flavour combination here. Depending on how big a fan you are, you might like to add more pb than that. I definitely will next time. If your pb is a little stiff, you might want to cut it with some vegetable oil until the consistency is runny enough to spread easily over the wet brownie mix.
Gluten-free dark chocolate brownies
- 1 cup water
- 1 ¼ cup rice flour
- ½ cup moderately packed brown sugar
- ½ cup white sugar
- ¾ cup cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup dairy-free chocolate chips (bulk-bin chocolate chips at New World and Pak n' Save are vegan, otherwise check the packet - most dark chocolates are okay)
Heat water and ¼ cup of the rice flour in a saucepan until a smooth paste forms. Let the paste cool completely (if you don’t, the chocolate chips will melt into the mixture instead of keeping their form and being a textural feature as intended).
Preheat oven to 170C.
Mix the rest of the flour with the other dry ingredients.
Stir oil and vanilla into the rice paste.
Mix wet and dry ingredients until combined.
Fold in chocolate chips.
Pour brownie mixture into a regular sized square baking pan or equvalent. The dish I used was about 20x30cms.
Bake for 30 minutes for a soft, doughy brownie with chewy edges. Bake a little longer if you prefer a cakier texture.
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