Vegan Brownies

Just 30 minutes stands between you and a batch of these one bowl vegan chocolate brownies! Made with real pantry ingredients and no weird substitutions, everyone will love just how rich and decadent these brownies are.

If my recipe archive says anything about me, it’s that I love making brownies. So far on my site I have recipes for:

• Quick and Easy Chocolate Brownies (cocoa powder only)
• Classic Chocolate Brownies (with chocolate chunks and nuts)
• Vegan Biscoff Brownies – New!
• Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownies
• Gluten-Free Peppermint Chocolate Brownies

So far all my brownie recipes are dairy-free, some are gluten-free or easily made gluten-free by swapping the flour for a 1-1 substitute. But the one brownie recipe that I have always felt was missing from my site was a classic vegan option.

The issue when making a vegan brownie comes down to replacing the egg as most brownie recipes use egg to bind the ingredients and it helps to give that thick, fudgy texture. But I knew it was possible to still achieve a rich and fudge brownie texture without egg as I have eaten one before courtesy of I Heart Brownies, a wonderful bakery in Brisbane that has really nailed the niche market.

When I started looking around at recipes for vegan brownies, many of them included egg substitutions that I just wouldn’t normally have available in my pantry, an example being applesauce. I think using applesauce in baking is much more common in the US than it is here in Australia so it’s not really something that I am familiar with so I ruled it out.

The next option was to use a flax-egg which is the combination of ground flaxseed and water to make a gel-like consistency, and is what I use in my favourite vegan banana bread recipe. The problem was that I was out of flaxseed which made me think that this probably isn’t an ingredient that most people have available. So that was out as well.

As for using ‘healthy’ alternatives such as sweet potato, black beans or avocado, they didn’t even register as an option for me. If you are familiar with the vegan recipes I post my goal is to get you as close as possible to the original taste and texture for sweet treats but without the allergens. So these were also out.

Where that left me was knowing I wanted to use all pretty commonly available ingredients that I would expect people to have on hand. But I still wanted to achieve a soft, rich and fudgy brownie without it being cakey.

What I ended up with was replacing butter with coconut oil, keeping the dry ingredients to the minimum needed so that the brownies wouldn’t fall apart and then simply using almond milk to bind the batter. I also ALWAYS use brown sugar only in my brownies because they add so much extra flavour and also help us achieve that soft, fudgy texture.

The result of these brownies were maybe even better than the egg version. They were so rich and decadent, perfect served warm while the chocolate pieces inside are a little melty.

How to make vegan brownies

So now we know what’s in them, how do we actually make them? Well there is nothing fancy about this section here today as this recipe is so forgiving. Throw everything into a bowl and mix it together – no special equipment needed. I like to use a rubber spatula but you can just use a spoon.

Once the batter is all mixed up, pour it into a 20cm (8inch) square pan that has been lined with baking paper and lightly sprayed with cooking oil. Bake for 20 minutes or until the middle is set.

A lot of recipes for brownies will tell you to let them cool completely before cutting into them because you risk tearing them. I disagree with this because if I am making brownies, I am going to want to eat them while they are still warm. So what I do is let them cool for about 10 minutes and then use a bread knife to cut them into squares which works perfectly!

Serve warm with a scoop of ice cream if you dare – Ben & Jerry’s have some incredible vegan flavours at the moment!

This recipe is perfect for when you are short on time, need something super easy, have guests to feed who have egg or dairy allergies or are vegan. Plus you can still totally swap out the regular flour for your favourite 1-1 gluten-free substitute.

Made with pantry staples and coming together in under 30 minutes, there isn’t really any reason I can think of that you shouldn’t make a batch of these brownies ASAP.

If you do make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and rating below! And tag any of your creations on Instagram with #eightforestlane as I would love to see.