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Vegan Barley Flour Brownies
November 30th, 2009 Madhuram Posted in Brownies, Low Fat Baking, Vegan Baking, Whole Grain Baking | 
| 20 Comments »
Hello friends, I’m very thrilled to inform you all that EgglessCooking.com has been nominated for the Best Food Indiblog of the year 2008 by Indibloggies. Take a look at the other Indian food blogs nominated and if you like mine the most, vote for me here.
After trying the barley flour chocolate cake I was confident that barley flour would be good in brownies too. I decided to use barley flour in the oat flour-beet brownies recipe which I had tried earlier. This time I wanted to make it vegan too, so I used unsweetened chocolate instead of semi-sweet chocolate and increased the quantity of sugar. If you don’t want to make it vegan simply follow that recipe but use barley flour instead of oat flour and pumpkin puree instead of beet puree or use beet puree itself.
Yield: 16 pieces
1 Preheat the oven to 350F. Coat and 8 inch square pan with cooking spray or line it with aluminum foil like me leaving enough foil hanging on both the sides so that lifting the brownies with the foil is easy and so is cutting the brownies too.
2 Melt the chocolate and margarine in the microwave oven, in a large bowl. Take care while doing so or else the chocolate will get burnt. So increase the time little by little. Stir it well, it should be smooth.
3 In the same bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla and unsweetened applesauce and whisk it well. This mixture should be smooth and creamy. I found that this mixture was very stiff, so added 1/4 cup of water (pumpkin cooked water) too.
4 Sift the barley flour over the liquid ingredients directly. Then stir the baking powder, chopped pecans and salt with a wooden spoon.
5 Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smooth it out with a spatula and bake it for about 35-40 minutes. Mine was done after 38 minutes. Brownies should spring back when touched or simply do the toothpick test.
6 Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. Since I lined the pan with aluminum foil I lifted it after an hour and I cooled it on a wire rack. After another 2 hours I was able to cut them into neat squares without any trouble. If baking it directly in the pan, it will take some more (actually a lot more) time for the brownies to cool completely and getting neat pieces will also be difficult.
2 You can use all purpose flour too instead of barley flour.
3 You could use store bought canned pumpkin too. I think in that case you would have to add additional water because the canned puree is very stiff. I always cook the puree at home. Actually I prepare three vegetable purees at the same time and freeze it. It’s carrots, pumpkin and beets. I use a big pressure cooker for this. Clean, peel and chop the vegetables into bite size pieces. Take 3 utensils which will fit the cooker and add each vegetable to one utensil each and add enough water to cover them and leave the cooker for 1 whistle. Once it is cool enough drain the vegetables and use a blender to get a smooth puree or puree it while it’s still hot with an immersion blender. Save the vegetable cooked water and use it while preparing soups. Transfer the puree into 1/2 cup size containers and freeze it and use it whenever needed. Thaw it overnight in the fridge if you want to use it the next day.
4 Home made pumpkin puree is not as stiff as the canned one. After thawing I found that it had way
too much water. So I had to strain the puree in a fine meshed sieve to separate the water.
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December 31st, 2009 at 12:11 am
I just made these, but with oat flour instead of barley. I also added a touch of cinnamon and sprinkled some chocolate chips on top. They are so fantastic!
Thank you very much pumpkinpie. I too have made brownies with oat flour and its definitely good too.
December 7th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Just voted for u. kudos!
Thanks Sai.
December 3rd, 2009 at 6:32 am
Madhu,I have posted my first.Will be trying two more by tomorrow.If turned out right will be sending everything together.I am having power pblms her.Its like 12 hour powercut.So no baking.!
Will check it out Sweatha.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:59 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/dining/021frex.html?_r=1&em
Here’s one that made me think of you, for you to play with!
That’s a nice recipe Deepa. Thanks for the link.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:36 pm
OK sure – I am planning on an experiment with the one I have – was thinking of trying it over the weekend then realized that your deadline is on the 5th. Lemme do it 2morrow and if it comes out fine will send them over…
Hugs
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Announced JFI- Saffron yday itself. Great send them over! You know Malts right – they are produced by sprouting the whole grain (barley in this case), creating enzymes etc and then made into a sweetener. Yes its from the whole grain – that’s why wondered.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:19 am
Congratulations on the Nomination Madhu ! Hope you win in the categories you mentioned ! Hugs ! Hope S and A are doing good!
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:45 am
CONGRATS on the NOmination.Its surely feels great.Love the brownies.I got the barley at last.Will be sending atleast one b4 deadline.All the best Madhu
Thanks Sweatha. I’ll wait for your entry.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Congrats on the nomination. Just did the voting:)
December 1st, 2009 at 5:17 am
Awesome
I just did
Thanks Silent Reader.