Tag Archives: PETA

Vegan Black Bean Brownies

These vegan brownies are gluten free, vegan and totally delicious. They taste like any other brownie you may have met, except have a more complex and deep taste associated with the chocolate, almost a savory sweet.  They are also not dry, which is more than I can say for most other brownies I’ve experienced of the non-veg variety.  This is another one of those recipes that you may as well just double and bake off another batch for the masses.  They freeze well and keep in the fridge for a long time so you can enjoy them longer.

Ingredients

  • 1/3 of a 15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed (about 1/2 cup)
  • 1 flax egg (1 T flaxseed meal + 2.5 T water)
  • 1 T coconut oil (or other oil)
  • scant 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • dash salt
  • 1/2 t vanilla
  • 1/4 c granulated sugar
  • 1/2 t baking powder
  • heaping 1/2 t finely ground espresso powder or instant coffee granules
  • 1/4 c semisweet chocolate chips (dairy free for vegan)*

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 6 muffin tins. Prepare flax egg by combining flax and water in small bowl and letting it rest for 3-5 minutes. Combine black beans through instant coffee in a food processor (sift in sugar if clumpy) and puree. Then stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter into muffin tins and smooth the tops with a spoon. Bake for 17 minutes or until tops are dry and starting to pull away from the sides. Let cool for 30 minutes before removing from pan (I baked mine in cupcake papers so I didn’t have to mess with clean up and I baked another batch in mini cupcake tin form).

*PETA happens to have a very good/searchable data base on their website for vegan products to sub for regular products.  I understand they are polarizing but they also have the mad money to make tools that are incredible for people searching for animal safe items.  Despite the fact that they sell half shirts still (thanks Pamela Anderson), I really like the info they have available on their site.  If you just can’t bring yourself to check out the tools, typically you can find Ghiradelli Chips at the grocery store which are accidentally vegan.

Recipe courtesy:  Dana Schultz

Happy Birthday to Me! Vegan Cupcake Recipe for YOU!

In honor of my birthday today (36 is the new 26), a vegan cupcake recipe for your nom nom pleasure.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

  • 3 C all purpose flour
  • 2 C white sugar
  • 6T cocoa powder
  • 2 tsp soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3/4 C vegetable or canola oil
  • 2 T white distilled vinegar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 C cold water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F).

Sift the dry ingredients together into a large mixing bowl.  Gently add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients until just combined.

Scoop out 1/4 C batter into cupcake wrappers.

Bake 350 x 12-16 minutes depending on your oven.  My batches all averaged about 15 minutes in a conventional gas oven.

Let cool and frost with your fave vegan frosting or Pillsbury chocolate frosting (both dark and milk chocolate varieties are accidentally vegan).

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Thank you to my friends Jon Dunn and Kolene Allen of VeganGR for sharing this recipe with me.