Easy Chocolate Brownies, Vegan and Gluten Free!

This is a nice simple recipe, you'll need to have a small baking dish, as it just makes a small batch but being a small size, it doesn't take too long to whip these up for some friends coming round to tea and maybe you can cut them into bite sized pieces, for a tasty, sugary but not too over-indulgent treat. Balancing out the guilt of raw cane sugar is the secret ingredient of half a mashed up avocado, which has to be adding something good and beneficial to the overall mix.

I might also add that being a small size, these don't stay around for too long either.

1/ Preheat the oven to 180°

2/ Line a small baking dish, (mine is a 9" x 7")  with grease proof paper and then grease well with vegetable oil.

3/ Put the following ingredients into a large jug and stir well:
1/2 a cup of Doves Farm Gluten Free Plain Flour
1/2 a cup of raw cane sugar
2 heaped tablespoons of cocoa powder.
A pinch of salt
1/4 a teaspoon of Baking Powder
4/ After mixing the dry ingredients together, in another jug mash up half a ripe avocado, then add 1/2 a cup of Almond Milk and a 1/4 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract and mix well.

5/ Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until well mixed.

6/ Add 50g of smashed up dark chocolate into the mix.

6/ Scrape the batter out into the greased and lined baking tray and pop into the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

7/ Take the cake out of the oven and cover with foil, then bake for another 10 minutes, or until a knife stuck into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

8/ Leave the cake to cool, with the foil taken off.

I have been experimenting a bit with these brownies and have decided they are even better, if they are thicker. So, if you don't need them quickly baked, you can go for this recipe instead, which will take a bit longer to bake, uses twice the amount of ingredients but produces a deliciously thick and indulgent brownie.

Thick Brownies:

1/ Preheat the oven to 180°

2/ Line a small baking dish, (mine is a 9" x 7")  with grease proof paper.

3/ Put the following ingredients into a large jug and stir well:
1 cup of Doves Farm Gluten Free Plain Flour
1  cup of raw cane sugar
4  tablespoons of cocoa powder.
A pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of Baking Powder
4/ After mixing the dry ingredients together, in another jug mash up a ripe avocado, then add 1 cup of Almond Milk.

5/ Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until well mixed.

6/ Add 100g of smashed up dark chocolate into the mix.

6/ Scrape the batter out into the greased and lined baking tray and pop into the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

7/ Take the cake out of the oven and cover with foil, then bake for another 25 minutes, or until a knife stuck into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

8/ Leave the cake to cool, with the foil taken off.

Veganuary

Oh! I have just spontaneously signed up to this: VEGANUARY I am a pescatarian but I really admire the Vegan friends that I have made through our shop. They seem to me to be the most ethical of all the people that I know. When we first opened My Coffee Stop, nearly 8 years ago now, we made a commitment for everything to be 100% suitable for vegetarians. The reasoning behind it was inclusive eating and drinking, so that people could meet with their friends and all enjoy the same things without having to worry. A vegetarian diet leaps over many boundaries to eating communally that religious food laws may set up and we want people from all sorts of backgrounds and beliefs to enjoy coming together and we want to embrace people from all different backgrounds into our coffee shop community. We also had it in our minds that we wanted our business to make a positive contribution to our local and global community, so this meant being as green as we possibly could and eating meat and using animal products is just not good for the earth on any level.
Over the years, I have devised my own recipes for Vegan Cakes, Vegan Pizza and have a whole range of delicious Vegan hot drinks for people to enjoy and I am proud that just recently, we made the decision NOT to charge extra for using a plant milk, instead of cows' milk in a drink. That is a massive step forward for veganism, as logically why should we charge people extra for making an ethical choice, even when almond milk and the such like are more expensive to provide? Well, yes, looking at it on a business level, it's obvious we should charge more but taking a more holistic and worldly view, we shouldn't charge more for a decision that is a much better choice for the planet and for everyone. In fact, maybe we should be charging more for cows' milk maybe and putting people off it?

On a personal level, attempting to do Veganuary could be hard! I love eggs! I find them a really handy snack and surely, if they are unfertilised and the chickens are running free, then they are ok, aren't they? If you are going to comment on this blog post and correct my way of thinking, please be gentle, I am an animal too. I have just found out that I will be visiting my Mum and Dad next week, something to do with my extra work career, that I have just started recently, after having a break from the world of entertainment for a few years, whilst concentrating on our children and our coffee shop! Now, that is going to be full of pitfalls! I might have to bring along my own meals. What about protein, how do Vegans get their protein? I am scared of being hungry and then eating loads of sugary crap things. How do you prepare for that? On the other hand being Vegan and Gluten Free is easy isn't it? I mean, there's plants and vegetables and most dark chocolate is Vegan and Gluten Free! that should be ok then. Oh no! I have just glimpsed two gold coin wrappers on the side, I have just mindlessly put them into my mouth, whilst chatting to a customer and not even thinking about what I am doing, I have just EATEN MILK CHOCOLATE! NOT VEGAN and NOT GOOD! Ok, I am going to start again.....from NOW. Right NOW! I can see that doing Veganuary is going to be a FULL time occupation and I am going to have to be EXTREMELY mindful of what I am putting into my mouth, even more mindful than usual. I think that I am going to find this HARD! How about you? Will you join me on my journey?

Vegan Chocolate Cake topped with a Ginger and Chocolate Ganache.