Not So Salted Caramel Brownies

I have been feeling rather frazzled lately. Example, we had a delayed start to work on Monday, which meant I had two extra hours to get ready and I still managed to leave my wallet at home! My scatter-brained mentality is probably why I had so much trouble deciding on my next baking adventure. First these blueberry turnover pop-tarty thingys caught my eye, and looked super yummy and given Harris Teeter’s recent buy one pint of blueberries get one free, worked perfectly with my mission to turn myself into a giant blueberry from eating so many—think Violet from Willy Wonka, but nicer! Then I decided I wanted to try and make vegan peppermint patties because they are my favorite candy! After much vegan blog perusing (this new adventure is allowing me to hone my time wasting skills), I remembered my promise (to myself) to try making vegan brownies, to see if I could make them “gooey” and “fudgy” as all blog posts pertaining to vegan brownies claim they are.

So what did I land on you ask (hint: it’s in the title)? Vegan salted caramel brownies! My lovely friend Emily (HEY EM!) sent me a recipe for salted caramel brownies and I decided to try and “veganize” it. Now I could have used the eggs because eggs don’t = tummy trouble for me, but I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge (remember that whole Peace Corps thing!?!). I combined two recipes. One for vegan and gluten-free brownies and the one from the recipe Emily sent me for salted caramel sauce (I had to “veganize” this one).

Sorry to disappoint folks, but it was somewhat of a fail. The hardest part was “veganizing” the salted caramel sauce. I searched and searched (again with the time wasting…) for a vegan salted caramel recipe and couldn’t find one. I used Earth Balance instead of butter, which seemed to be an adequate substitute, although I don’t think Earth Balance tastes quite the same as butter. I subbed in soy creamer for the heavy cream and this is where I think the problem really was. Soy creamer is very watery and I think this resulted in a watery caramel sauce. Not to mention I had to make the salted caramel sauce twice because I let the sugar get too hot and burned the first batch. Apparently my definition of the “dark amber” color the sugar should be (as indicated in the recipe) was a little off!

The brownie recipe used one of my absolute favorite things, Bisquick! I know it seems strange, but the gluten-free Bisquick is the perfect flour blend for vegan brownies, plus it reminds me of weekend mornings when my mom would make us pancakes in the shape of bunnies (my favorite animal)! The recipe called for jam, which is what I think made these brownies delicious! I used organic strawberry jam. I was shocked with the final product, because you can’t taste the jam at all but the brownies are really fudgy (yup I accomplished the fudgy part) but not necessarily gooey.*

I added the water-logged salted caramel to my brownie batter, following the recipe instructions, but was more than a little panicked when I saw how watery it looked in the pan. I figured I had nothing to lose and would just bake them anyway! Ultimately, you can’t taste the salted caramel sauce at all and if I hadn’t put it in, I wouldn’t know it was there. The brownies are still delicious though and I actually covered them to stop myself from eating the whole plate!

* I will NEVER use the word moist on this site. Honestly I just cringed typing it; I hate it for some unexplained reason! But if you are a fan of the “word I will not say/write” feel free to substitute it for other similar words I might use!

“Are you sure these are vegan?”

Have you seen “Sh*t blah blah blahs say!?!?” I know, I know you are all super sick of hearing about it! BUT, a friend of mine (who knows that I am venturing into veganism) recently sent me a link to “Sh*t Vegans Say” and the title of this post made me laugh because anyone I know who is vegan or pretending to be vegan (like myself) asks this question all the time. That and “Did you use Earth Balance in this?” or better yet “Are you sure this wasn’t processed by, around, near, in the same zip code as any meat products?” Because I am trying to go vegan I can make fun of it…right!?!

I have been a vegetarian for almost 14 years. I don’t eat any meat or fish and limit the animal products, although I still eat eggs and dairy. Recently I began considering giving up dairy—I will spare you the gruesome details—and realized that this threw a wrench in a lot of my baking plans. Those peppermint bark dark chocolate brownies I made for my work holiday party were off limits and my favorite thing to bake thus far—cupcakes –were more difficult to get right, since the one time I tried to make vegan cupcakes they turned out like raspberry flavored bricks! Now I will not completely stop making stuff with eggs and dairy because 1) it’s delicious and 2) some things are just better with butter.*

Now here is a twist, I have lost 40 pounds since last January by following Weight Watchers (WW) online (no this is not WW endorsed). I am sharing this not to brag, but because combining partial veganism with WW has been a little tricky, so I was very excited to find many vegan recipes on the site. My lovely Aunt from Texas is visiting this weekend and she joined WW too (look for us as the next family endorsing WW on TV Jennifer Hudson style!) and decided to make me dinner using one of their vegetarian recipes. So I decided to contribute dessert and found a yummy WW approved vegan chocolate cookie recipe.

The only thing I didn’t have for these cookies was the unsweetened coconut, which was very easy to find. Fun fact, cocoa does not have milk (you probably already knew this but I didn’t when I first went dairy-free). The recipe was fairly easy to make minus the almost boiling water part, which always makes me nervous. I am also lucky enough to have a beautiful, bright orange, Kitchen Aid mixer (thanks mom!) so it was easy to combine all the ingredients. The recipe does not make 50 cookies, which was a total relief to me since I didn’t know who I was going to give them to! It made about 36 cookies following the serving guidelines of a scant tablespoon full.

Taste review: these cookies are VERY chocolatey! I love it! You don’t taste the coconut at all, although it does give them a nice texture. I might try and use coconut oil next time instead of plain vegetable oil. Overall, they turned out pretty yummy (and only 2 WW points!) and I am hoping my Aunt and Grandma Min enjoy them (when I baked vegan milanos, Grandma Min told me she needed “a wrench” to bite through it…hmm probably not a compliment, huh?).

*In light of the recent Paula Deen controversy, I hereby promise that now that I have endorsed butter I will not once I get rich and famous endorse some kind of diabetes drug.

Well this is unexpected...

So blogging is pretty much the last thing I thought I would ever do. If you know me, you know I am not really into talking about myself or being the center of attention but here I am....PAY ATTENTION TO ME :)

I was spending this lovely morning perusing fb (that's right, expect a lot of abbrevs on this blog) and I realized that my profile was dominated by pictures of things I had baked. Baking is something that I do for fun (it's definitely not a career although I wish it was) and I have a great time every weekend (and sometimes during the week) trying out new recipes. I've recently entered the world of vegan baking which is probably what my first post will be about.

I think my main intention with this blog is to share my baking successes (and failures) and get better at taking pictures of what I made! If you are friends with me on facebook, you know how bad I am at this.

I grew up in a house of great bakers. My mom makes the best brownies I have ever tasted and my grandma min basically turned our house into an Italian cookie-making factory during Christmas time! Oh and did I mention that my pops makes the best tiramisu I've ever had and recently "whipped up" two homemade pies for Christmas dinner! So baking runs in the family. I hope you enjoy my stories and I hope they make you laugh a little bit!