the vegan fork: Recipe reviews: "Decadent Brownies"? Try "Desiccated Brownies"

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Recipe reviews: "Decadent Brownies"? Try "Desiccated Brownies"

I'm going over to a friend's house this afternoon, and we have an agenda. There are several organizational items we need to accomplish. By now we've recognized that our usual method of trying to get things done -- starting the cocktails flowing immediately and non-stop chatting -- doesn't work. We never accomplish anything.

So, new plan. We will have list of goals and hold out on the alcohol until we've accomplished a thing or two. No drinks until we've ticked some things off of our list! But we'll need other motivation besides drinks (otherwise we'll end up trashed on a Sunday afternoon and our productivity will decrease rapidly). So I thought I'd make some snacks to help us along.

Brownies sounded like a great idea. I decided to make the "Decadent Brownies" in The Garden of Vegan. Once I mixed up the batter, I noticed that it was kind of mocha-colored, not the deep mud-color that I like my brownie batter to be. So I thought I'd best taste the batter before baking. Ick. It was really bland. So I added a fair bit of cocoa powder to get the batter to the proper color and to make them taste "decadent" as the recipe title promised. I also added a bit of vanilla extract. The batter tasted great, so I went ahead and baked the brownies.

I made the "Chocolate Mint Icing" in the same book to top them with. The icing? Delicious. The brownies? The driest brownies I've ever had in my life. They're terrible. I ate a few crumbs as I was cutting them up, and I realized I couldn't possibly serve these to someone I consider a friend.
So I popped them in the freezer, hoping that sometime I'll become desperate enough to eat them.




Plan B: I've always liked How it All Vegan much better than The Garden of Vegan (although the desserts are the weakest parts of both books), so I decided to go back to the original. I settled on the "Chocolate Chip Bars." I was still in a minty mood, so I added some peppermint oil to the batter....they turned out delicious! Much better than the brownies. Moist and yummy. Mmm, you can see the yumminess in the picture.




I also made this Split Pea Spread with Hummus Flavors from fatfreevegan because I had some yellow split peas sitting around in the cabinet. It's pretty good -- hummus-flavored as the name implies, but not so creamy and filling. Like a light hummus. Not something that I would expect to actually stand up to hummus in a head-to-head battle, but an adequate substitute on its own.

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