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Easy Eggless Brownies using Silken Tofu

Madhuram — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:46:51 +0000

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I chose Silken Tofu as this month’s egg substitute for the Egg Replacement Event, because I got a stunning result with this cake. So I thought that replacing tofu for eggs is going to be a breeze. Boy, I was so wrong! There are so many things to be taken into consideration while baking using egg substitutes and especially with silken tofu. I tried three recipes and only one turned out good. I don’t know what went wrong in the other 2 recipes. Is it the recipe or my baking method or the tofu?

I want to share my experience with tofu with all of you. Hope I will be able to convey it all in a clear and concise manner. Feel free to skip my ramblings in the box below, if you simply want a recipe to bake eggless brownies.

** My Experiments with Tofu **
I bought Nasoya’s Silken Tofu as I did for the eggless chocolate cake. My son has started preschool and next month he is responsible for providing snacks for his classmates for 2 days. So I thought I will try something now and if it comes out well, I can bake them again next month. Since I wanted to send something healthy, I decided to try oatmeal raisin cookies from here. The 5 tablespoons of margarine impressed me especially to try this recipe. I decided to follow the recipe as it is, but for using 1/4 cup pureed tofu instead of the 1 egg mentioned in the recipe. To start with, I was not able to beat the 5 tablespoons of margarine to a creamy consistency. The margarine was nice and soft, but most of it was just sticking around the bowl. Even after adding sugar and beating it with a hand held electric mixer, I did not see anything creamy. Then I did another blunder of adding the pureed tofu and beating it again, just to see the tofu curdle. Small tofu lumps were swimming in a white color water. Inspite of this, I continued to proceed with the recipe. I poured the entire mixture of creamed margarine, sugar and tofu in a blender and blended it until nice and smooth and to my surprise it did look good. Nothing to complain at all.

Another substitution I made was adding 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour instead of entire 1 cup all purpose flour. Mixed the flour, oats and raisins with the wet mixture and got a big ball of cookie dough. It was not moist like the other cookie doughs I have handled so far. I was able to roll them into balls easily and placed them on the baking sheet. I thought that while baking the dough would flatten, but it stayed just like that. So it did not cook properly and I had to keep increasing the time. For the second batch, I flattened the dough while placing it on the baking sheet and inspite of that it did not bake enough in the centre and I had to bake it for a couple minutes more for this batch too. It did not taste anything like the oatmeal raisin cookies I have eaten before. They were not baked enough, did not have the right texture and definitely not sweet enough. I think the result would be good, if the original recipe is followed. With so many substitutions by me, it was such a mess.

Then after going through a couple of books and other internet resources, I found that tofu works best in cakes and brownies. Ground flaxseed gives the desired results in cookies, especially oatmeal cookies. So decided to try a cake recipe using tofu. Since I have already baked a chocolate cake using tofu, I wanted to try a white cake this time. Found this recipe interesting because of it’s simplicity, fat content and good reviews. For this one I added 1/2 cup pureed tofu and sugar in a blender and blended it until creamy and followed the recipe exactly, but used muffin tins instead of a round cake pan.

Somebody in the review had mentioned that the muffins came out well and I wanted to try it out too. Even though it looked decent, it did not have a soft, spongy texture at all. So I was pretty sure that it’s not going to taste well and I was absolutely right. It had the texture of rubber and was way too sweet.

I was really disappointed about how these recipes had turned out. Since I started this blog in March, this is the first time my baking experiments have failed, especially two times in a row. I had only little tofu remaining and I decided to try another recipe immediately because the tofu has to be used within 3 days after opening the box.

This time I considered 2 points before chooshing a recipe, (a) there should not be any creaming involved (I think that beating the tofu was the mistake in the above two recipes) and (b) since my eggless chocolate cake came out so well, I wanted to try another recipe with cocoa. I don’t know if it’s just a sentiment or there is really some science behind it, just like coffee and cocoa, the tofu and cocoa combination also works like a charm. I tried this brownie recipe with tofu instead of eggs and got a wonderful result. We did not taste the tofu at all and I bet nobody could ever tell that they are eggless brownies. I also wanted to try a brownie recipe because the one which I have posted earlier was baked using a store bought mix, which I think is available only in US and Canada, maybe UK too.

The original recipe itself is very simple to follow, but I made it even easier by using just one mixing bowl. So it’s not only an eggless brownie but also a one dish brownie. Also these brownies are dense, moist and chewy.

Ingredients

Butter – 1/2 cup (1 stick)

Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – 1/2 cup

Sugar – 1 cup

Silken Tofu, pureed – 1/2 cup (equivalent of 2 eggs)

Vanilla Extract – 2 teaspoons

Salt – 1/4 teaspoon

All Purpose Flour – 1/2 cup

Walnuts – 1/2 cup (Nuts, chocolate chips, chocolate chunks – optional).

Step-by-Step Procedure 1. Preheat the oven at 350F/180C for 15 minutes.

2. Cut the butter into small pieces and add it to a medium sized microwave safe bowl.

3. Melt the butter in the microwave. Mine took 1 minute to melt. First I timed it for 30 seconds, stirred it and kept it for another 30 seconds.

4. Remove the bowl from the microwave and let it stand for a minute.

5. Now add the cocoa powder to the melted butter and combine it well until the cocoa powder dissolves. I used a wire whisk.

6. Slowly add the sugar too and mix it well using a whisk.

7. The mixture will look very stiff, making you wonder if you are doing the right thing. So don’t panic.

8. Now add 1/4 cup pureed tofu and combine it well and then add the remaining 1/4 cup of tofu also and mix it well again.

9. Next add the vanilla and salt too.

10. Add the flour next and mix it until you no longer see any flour and also add the nuts or any other optional ingredients mentioned. Even now the dough is in a semi solid/spreadable butter consistency only. It’s not as watery as a cake batter that you can pour in a pan.

11. Grease a 8×8 inch pan with the butter wrapper and spread the batter evenly and bake it for 25 minutes. (See My Notes)

12. Cool completely before cutthing into squares.

My Notes 1. To check for the doneness, the author of the recipe has mentioned that the toothpick inserted should come out with moist crumbs and not clean. Mine did not come like that after 25 minutes, so I baked it for another 3 minutes and even then it did not come like that. So I removed it from the oven anyway and kept the pan on a wire cooling rack to cool. Because of baking a couple minutes extra, I think the top was mildly dry. I would suggest baking it for just 25 minutes and it will continue to bake even after taking it out of the oven giving the correct texture.

2. Cooling completely is a very IMPORTANT point too. So leave it undisturbed until the bottom of the pan is completely cool or for 2-3 hours and then slice it. At first I tried to slice it while the pan was still mildly hot, but was not able to cut properly. So I left it cool overnight and sliced it in the morning and got nice, clean pieces.

Eggless Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies using Condensed Milk

Madhuram — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:12:01 +0000

Early yesterday morning I started my baking expedition. First I started with the Eggless Coconut Macaroon recipe. One of my friends wanted a substitute for coconuts. I thought that carrots might work out and tried the exact same recipe with grated carrots instead. What was I thinking? Not all light bulb flashes are as good as this one or this one. Fortunately I test baked only 4 or 5. The carrots were not cooked and had a raw smell and I did not have the patience to bake it further. So I abandoned it halfway. Now what to do with the rest of the batter? Recently in a magazine I came across a recipe for Carrot Appams (deep fried dumplings). Already this batter had all purpose flour, carrots and condensed milk, so I asked my mother to tweak it a little and prepare appams, which by the way tasted so much better than my carrot macaroons.

With a beautiful climate and abundant sunshine, I did not want to waste the day, when my husband and myself always complaint that we don’t have enough sunlight to take good pictures. So I decided to try another recipe inspite of the “not-so-good-result” in the morning. This time I did not want to experiment anything on my own, so went with a recipe from the book “Cookies” by Pippa Cuthbert and Lindsay Cameron Wilson.

The condensed milk chocolate chip cookies is the first recipe in the book and is also egg less, so I did’nt have to modify anything at all. Good for me! As always I test baked 3 cookies first and was waiting eagerly to see how it turns out. As I have not used all purpose flour alone as mentioned in the recipe, I was not able to check for the golden brown color, to take it out from the oven. I checked the cookies after 17 minutes and it felt right. When I touched it in the middle, it did look like it was not baked, but once I left it in the baking sheet itself for 5 minutes, it became hard. It had the proper shape, thickness and looked like store bought cookies. It tasted amazingly delicious. Crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, but little sweet for our taste. I think the sweetness was because of the white chocolate chips I used. I can’t wait to try the original recipe (with all purpose flour and semi sweet chocolate chips) to taste the traditional chocolate chip cookies, but egg less.

Ingredients

Butter, softened – 2 sticks (I used Smart Balance 50/50 Blend)

Granulated Sugar – 1/2 cup

Sweetened Condensed Milk – 1/2 cup (I used Eagle Brand Fat Free Milk)

Vanilla Extract – 1/2 teaspoon (Not mentioned in the original recipe, but I included it)

All Purpose Flour – 2.25 cup (See My Notes)

Baking Powder – 1 teaspoon

Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips/chunks – 1.75 cups

Nuts – Optional (I used chopped walnuts for 1 batch)

Yield: 43 cookies

Step-By-Step Procedure

(Click on the thumbnails for a bigger view)

1. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).
2. Grease baking sheets or line it with parchment paper.
3. Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until pale and creamy (for 5 minutes).
4. Pour in the condensed milk, vanilla extract and beat to combine.
5. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder and combine well.
6. Stir into the butter mixture, then add the chocolate chips, nuts (if using).
7. Combine it well using a spatula. Don’t beat it.
8. Take a tablespoonful of dough, roll it and flatten it using your fingers. Grease the tablespoon, so that the dough will fall off easily.
9. Bake it for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown. (The color check can be done if using all purpose flour only. Mine were done at 17 minutes).
10. Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes in the baking sheet itself. Don’t try to remove it. It may look unbaked but it will become hard on the baking sheet itself.
11. After 5-10 minutes, using a spatula transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

My Notes 1. I had only white chocolate chips in my pantry. White chocolate chips with all purpose flour, will have a pale look, so to give a contrast in color, I mixed 1/4 cup of baking cocoa (Dorste) to 2 cups of all purpose flour, not changing the 2.25 cups of flour mentioned in the original recipe. So if you have semi-sweet chocolate chips, you can just use all purpose flour alone to bake the usual chocolate chip cookies.

2. The cookies were very sweet. I would suggest reducing the chocolate chips to 1.25 cups and add some chopped nuts or quick cooking oats instead.

3. If you are using a dark (black) color non stick baking sheet, reduce the baking time by 1 or 2 minutes, so that the bottom does not get burnt.

4. The cookies were crispy, not chewy. So if you want a chewy chocolate chip cookie, I think decreasing the quantity of butter or increasing the all purpose flour would be helpful.

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