I've been so excited to share these Vegan Christmas Brownies with you. I've been testing various recipe combinations for the perfect gingerbread brownies! These brownies are gooey, festive, chocolate-packed, and are just adorable with gingerbread biscuits and people all over them and inside them. My friends, neighbours and flatmates have loved being guinea pigs for each testing batch, to help me get the scrummiest textures and flavour! They can be packaged up as a late Christmas gift too.
Louise and I have also got some fantastic news... our labour of love has arrived. It's our Christmas, Holiday and Thanksgiving cookbook, Festive Feasts. This is full of the most mouth-watering festive dishes from canapes, sides, centrepieces and desserts. Christmas is about indulgence, wholesome, hearty food. Festive Feasts delivers on all those fronts. The book is available on Kindle or paperback - the perfect gift for loved ones, or just for yourself!
🍪Gingerbread
I am an absolute brownie lover, and wanted to create some vegan brownies for Christmas with a twist. These have gingerbread INSIDE them, as well as for decoration on the top. You can buy vegan gingerbread biscuits, or use our delicious and fun Gingerbread People recipe. The gingerbread pieces on the top are attached with a vegan buttercream. Of course, it is optional to decorate them - just the brownies baked with gingerbread inside is bliss.
When I made the gingerbread people, I cut out a variety of shapes from mini people (for inside the brownie) to bigger ones for the decoration, and also any other Christmasy shapes for just general gingerbread consumption! Because... I don't need a reason to eat extra gingerbread, thank you.
🍫Ingredients
These are the main ingredients for these yummy Christmas vegan brownies.
Cocoa / cacao - this forms part of the chocolate base for the brownies. If you want the healthier version, you can use cacao instead of cocoa. Cacao is the purer form of cocoa (much less processed). While both are absolutely fine, cacao is a health food and is a delicious addition to breakfast recipes for a healthy chocolate flavour.
Vegan chocolate - the most important part of the vegan gingerbread Christmas brownies!! This helps to give that deep chocolatey flavour. The melted chocolate that goes into the batter helps with gooey-ness, and the chocolate chunks give that extra chocolate experience and contrast in textures. I love using Green and Blacks dark chocolate which is organic and high in cocoa solids.
Gingerbread spices - for that extra Christmasy Festive flavouring. I just used ground ginger, but you can add things like cinnamon, mixed spice and nutmeg. Add more or less depending on your taste buds, or if you think the kids will prefer a milder taste.
Linseed / flaxseed - this is the egg replacement that helps bind the delicious vegan Christmas brownies. Linseed / flaxseed is full of omega-3s and an incredible source of fibre. 1 tablespoon of milled (i.e. blended) linseed + 3 tablespoon water = 1 egg. I created a whole post on egg replacements and how to use them, which you may find very helpful.
The gingerbread biscuit - as mentioned, this can be made yourself or you can buy some biscuits. They are so much tastier made yourself, and our Gingerbread People recipe makes enough biscuits for the brownies, plus more to be eaten on their own!
The rest of what goes in the vegan gingerbread Christmas brownies are your standard, familiar cake recipe ingredients including flour, sugar, oil and icing / powdered sugar (for the optional decoration).
👩🏽🍳How-To
I love how simple these vegan Christmas brownies are, and they're also pretty quick to make. Here's how you do it:
- Combine flour, sugar, cocoa powder, spices and baking powder in a bowl.
- Make the linseed/flaxseed egg. You do this by adding water to the milled (blended) linseed/flaxseed. It will form a sort of gel.
- Break up the chocolate and heat over boiling water to melt it.
- Once the chocolate is melted, take it off the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. Then add the plant milk.
5. Put the melted chocolate mix and the linseed/flaxseed egg into the flour mixture, and combine well to make a smooth batter.
6. Mix in the chocolate chips, then your chunks of gingerbread people.
7. Smooth the batter out then bake for 20 minutes at 200°C / 400°F / Gas Mark 6 or until a clean skewer emerges from the vegan Christmas brownies. Let them cool, then decorate with extra vegan gingerbread if you desire.
❓FAQs
The brownie part, yes. I've made these brownies using almond flour instead of plain flour and it worked out well. Our vegan gingerbread recipe isn't gluten-free, so you could just use another gluten-free biscuit or leave that part out. But this brownie recipe works really well on its own!
Always check your ingredients, but as long as you're using a plant/vegan milk that isn't from nuts, then yes, it will be nut-free.
Always check the ingredients of anything you use. Some chocolate has soy in, so find a chocolate that doesn't. Generally, the higher quality chocolate doesn't have soy in (in the form of soya lecithin). I generally buy Green & Blacks (85% Cocoa Solids) chocolate for this (it's soy-free but always check the packet and the environment it's manufactured in). Also make sure you're using a non-soya vegan milk for a soy free vegan brownie.
Yes! This is actually my go-to brownie recipe now for all year round. I just take out the spices and gingerbread.
This recipe was developed by Vanessa, one of the original co-founders of this site. Vanessa is now working on her plant based health coaching business, Energise and Thrive Plant Based.
She's also brought out her FREE Guide - 5 Steps to Balanced Plant Based Eating which you're welcome to download. Of course, all the recipes she has created for The Vegan Larder (like this one!) will remain here for you to access.
🍽️Other Recipes
If you loved these vegan gingerbread Christmas brownies, you may also love some of our other amazing chocolate and biscuit recipes!
Gluten Free Salted Peanut Choc Chunk Cookies
📖 Recipe
Vegan Gingerbread Christmas Brownies
Equipment
- Glass bowl
- Baking parchment
Ingredients Note:
For accuracy, I measure all ingredients in metric as standard, then convert and test the recipe for American cup measurements etc.
(Heads up Aussie and UK readers- your measurements in cups are sometimes different, so please use metric or check you have the correct cup and spoon type!!)
Ingredients
For the Gingerbread Brownies
- 125 g (⅔ cup) brown sugar
- 50 g (½ cup) cocoa / cacao powder
- 180 g (1⅓ cups) plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoon ground ginger (or other gingerbread spices e.g mixed spice, cinnamon)
- 200 g (1⅓ cups) dark chocolate, chopped
- 100 ml (½ cup) sunflower/rapeseed oil (or melted coconut oil)
- 200 ml (¾ cup + 1 tbsp) vegan (non-dairy) milk
- 3 tablespoon milled linseed / flaxseed (mixed with 9 tablespoon water - this makes 3 linseed eggs)
- 150 g (1 cup) vegan chocolate chunks / chips
- 10 approx vegan gingerbread biscuits (broken into halves or quarters, use our Gingerbread People recipe or buy)
To Decorate (optional)
- 50 g (3½ tablespoon) vegan butter
- 150 g (1¼ cup) icing / powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup / agave
- Extra vegan gingerbread people / pieces of gingerbread (use our Gingerbread People recipe or buy)
Instructions
For the Gingerbread Brownies
- Preheat oven to 200°C / 400°F / Gas Mark 6 and line a baking tin.
- Combine sugar, cocoa powder, flour, baking powder and ground ginger in a mixing bowl.
- Get your linseed / flaxseed egg ready (by combining the milled linseed with the water).
- Take the 200g / 1⅓ cups of vegan chocolate, and melt over a bowl of hot water or in the microwave.
- Once the chocolate has melted, take off the heat and let cool for a few minutes.
- Mix the oil and plant milk together in a jug. Slowly add them, bit by bit, to the melted chocolate, stirring in as you do so.
- Mix the linseed/flaxseed egg, and the chocolate mixture, into the flour mix.
- Mix together to make a smooth batter.
- Mix in the chocolate chips / chocolate chunks.
- Carefully add and mix in the pieces of gingerbread biscuit.
- Pour the mixture into your lined brownie tin, and smooth the top down.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer emerges clean.
- Once done, let the brownies cool in the tin. Then remove from the tin, cut up and decorate (optional).
To Decorate (optional)
- Make the buttercream icing by whipping together the vegan butter, icing / powdered sugar and maple syrup. Whip until creamy.
- Put a dollop of the whipped mixture on each brownie and stick a gingerbread person / piece of gingerbread to it.
- Enjoy with loved ones (or just for yourself!!).
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