I had mentioned about eggless brownie cupcakes in my previous post and here I’m with the recipe. Actually 2 weeks back it was my son’s turn to provide snacks for his classmates in preschool and I was wondering what to bake from the humungous collection of eggless recipes I have now. Since I’m hosting this event, I decided to bake something using flax seed meal. I wanted to bake something simple, which appeals children and that can be easily packed. I had borrowed “The Joy of Vegan Baking” book from the library and this brownie recipe (the author has actually adapted the recipe from Sinfully Vegan) caught my eye. Do you know the reason? It does not have any added fat like butter/oil etc. Applesauce is replaced for fat in the recipe. I’m aware of the fact that unsweetened applesauce can be used as an egg substitute as well as a fat substitute, but I have tried neither. So I was determined to try this recipe because I will be baking something healthy and who doesn’t like brownies, leave alone preschoolers.

If you have baked brownies before you would know that it takes a long time to cool and then you have to cut it. I wanted to bake 35 brownies and the recipe mentioned that it would yield 8-9 brownies, so I would have to bake 4-5 batches, take into account the cooling time, packing etc, which would consume a considerable amount of time. Then only I remembered what I had read a long time back in a magazine. One of the readers had mentioned that she baked brownies in a muffin tin and they came out very well. I decided to try it and I’m so glad that I tried it because it’s such a wonderful/neat idea. I think I’ll be baking brownies only in a muffin tin henceforth. Moreover the serving size is also increased to 12 from 8, using a muffin pan instead of a regular baking dish. So I had to bake only 3 batches.

As for the taste, it was AWESOME. You can never guess that these are healthy brownies. They were so moist. I was not able to get the feedback from the children, but one of the teachers told me that it tasted very good and the children really enjoyed it.

This is my entry for the following events:
1. Aparna’s Sweet Celebrations.
2. DK’s AWED – American.

I missed DK’s earlier 2 events, so this time I wanted to send at least one entry as early as possible.  This month’s theme being Italian and since I’m into eggless baking, I searched for Italian cookies and found this.  Lot of versions of these cookies are available throughout the net, but I found this one to be the easiest.  These are eggless whole wheat flour cookies, with a lot of almonds and raisins.

Ingredients

Margarine – 1/2 cup (I used 1 stick Smart Balance 50/50 Unsalted Butter Blend, more details in My Notes)

Cocoa, unsweetened – 2/3 cup (I used Droste, dutch processed cocoa powder. 2/3 cup = 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons)

Light brown sugar – 2 cups

Water – 1/2 cup

Whole wheat flour – 2 1/2 cups

Baking powder – 1 1/2 teaspoons

Cinnamon – 2 teaspoons (I used vanilla essence instead of these spices)

Cloves or allspice – 1 teaspoon

Almonds, finely chopped – 1 cup

Raisins – 1 cup

Yield: 53 small cookies

Step-By-Step Procedure(Click on the thumbnails for a bigger view)
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Combine first four ingredients in a saucepan.

3. Heat slowly, stirring till the mixture resembles a syrup. Let cool to room temperature.
4. Combine flour with baking powder and spices (if using).
5. Pour in chocolate syrup and work into a stiff batter. (See My Notes)

6. Add almonds and raisins. Raisins generally stick together, so take little flour and mix it with the raisins and separate them with your fingers, so the raisins will be spread uniformly throughout the batter.

7. I scooped out the dough using half tablespoon (see My Notes) and dropped it on the cookie sheet. The cookie does not spread, so leaving 1/2 inch space in between is sufficient. I was able to arrange 24 cookies in a large baking sheet.

8. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.
9. Remove it from the oven and let it cool in the baking sheet for 5 minutes.
10. Then transfer it to a wire rack to cool completely.

The cookies tasted more like chewy brownies with the perfect amount of sweetness from the combination of brown sugar and raisins.

As usual I wanted to give a twist to this recipe. It flashed, why not use ice cream cones to fill the batter instead of regular muffin tins. I remember seeing such a recipe on the of Keebler cones’ box. I had the fudge dipped ice cream cones, where the top has a covering of chocolate. I didn’t have the plain ones. I prepared the muffin batter, it was a breeze. Filled 2 cones and rest of the batter in regular size muffin pan. This is where I learnt a lesson. “DON’T BE OVER CONFIDENT”. I should have tried with one cone and one muffin to see the outcome and baked the rest. But no, I was thinking, “I have  baked muffins twice and both the times the result was good, let me not waste time and electricity, so I will bake everything right away”. I was eagerly seeing how the muffins were baking. The kitchen was filled with a very good aroma of chocolate and vanilla, the muffins were puffing up (even the cones, it looked like a perfect scoop of chocolate ice cream) as they should. See, baking is very easy. I told ya earlier! Wait, no, no, no!!!. My screaming couldn’t stop the muffins from becoming flat with a dent in the center. I was restless and watching the timer. It beeped and immediately took out the pan and inserted a skewer, none of them were done. Moreover the cones slided while removing the tin out and the batter poured out a little bit. Then only I realized that I had overfilled the cones and the muffin tins. So I put back the tin in the oven for another 3 minutes. This time the muffins were done, but it did not look like muffins, the classic tomb shape was missing. And as for the cones, because it was chocolate dipped, that chocolate burnt because of excess heat and so was having a weird smell. So another lesson, use plain ones for baking. The muffins had become dry due to excessive baking and the tops became very hard and it just came off. But the bottom was very very moist and tasty. Wow! eggless and so moist, unbelievable. So I separated the tops and the bottoms. The heavy cream added in the recipe gives it the moist texture. That’s what Mandira has mentioned. One thing I want to tell is, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE RECIPE. THE TASTE WAS VERY VERY GOOD. It was my wrong calculation.

I learnt the following from this experience:
1. Unless and otherwise you are very sure what you are doing, don’t do bake everything in one go, test one muffin first. See how it bakes and do the alterations accordingly for the rest. I think with experience I’ll be able to bake muffins perfectly in the first attempt itself.
2. Fill the batter covering half the tin. Don’t scrape the mixing bowl and add them to the muffin tins. This is how I overfilled, thinking that I should not waste the batter. It’s ok if there is little batter sticking to the bowl. You can eat it just like that, because it does not have eggs.
3. Use only plain cones. If using cones to fill the batter, place the cones in a mini muffin tin, instead of the regular ones. This fits right.      
    
I did take pictures of the muffins, but I don’t want to post it because it will give a bad opinion about the recipe. I don’t want people to skip this recipe just by seeing the picture without reading my above ramblings.

I was feeling very bad about how this turned out. I was thinking maybe I will try it sometime later and post it. But I couldn’t wait until I can try it again. The “new baker’s excitement” was catching me. I wanted to bake the muffins again immediately, but I didn’t know what do with the ones which I have already baked. Then I got an idea to use every bit of it, both the moist bottoms and dry tops. I will write about it later. Suspense!!!

Now ready to bake again. I asked my husband to get the plain cones. The instructions called for wrapping the bottom of the cones with aluminum foil, that’s what I did in my first try, but that was making it to wobble. So this time I lined the mini muffin pan with liners and placed the cone. Tried one cone first. Filled it less then half and baked for 20 minutes. It did not puff up perfectly. But I got an idea how much to fill for the remaining. So filled 5 more cones and kept them all in lined mini muffin tin and baked for 20 minutes. And wow! this time I got the perfect scoop like tops on my cones. Now you can ice it  like cupcakes and decorate with sprinkles or top a scoop of your favorite ice cream. We did the latter. It was very delicious. Be sure to check if it’s baked through the bottom inserting a bamboo skewer. I feel that these should be consumed on the same day itself. We have some remaining, I stored it in the fridge and it has become a little hard. I’m thinking of keeping it in the microwave for few seconds before eating. That should soften it. I’ve tried this with my carrot cake also. I store it in the fridge and before eating I microwave it for 5-10 seconds it becomes soft again like fresh out of the oven.