These Vegan Valentine's Brownies are great all year round. Not just for Valentine's Day! I've used these to win over colleagues, as well as birthday and dinner party guests. They have big chunks of vegan chocolate in. When you serve them warm the chocolate melts – perfect to pair with vegan ice-cream.
Yum!
This recipe was actually originally a recipe from my pre-vegan days, made with dairy & eggs. However, once I became vegan, it became my mission to veganise all my favourite recipes. This is one of my best-loved and most successful recipes!
Seriously- Everybody loves it!
Usually, I make vegan brownies with chopped walnuts instead of fruit, but I wanted to do a special Valentine day treat with beautiful red features – a luxurious melt-in-the mouth gift for your loved one (or just you, of course!). However, if you don’t like the idea of fruit in your vegan brownies, stick in a handful of chopped nuts instead of the dried raspberries.
So what magic do I use to make these vegan brownies??
I learned that one of the keys to keeping these vegan brownies gooey is to use a load of milled linseed / flaxseed as the egg substitute.
This does have the effect of making the mixture look a bit strange. But I promise, just mix it all in well and it will work. Don't be scared by the quantities. I make a variation of this pretty much weekly and it turns out perfectly every time!! Just make sure you give it extra cooking time if you think it isn't done.
Any kind of sugar will do – standard caster sugar, or if you want a healthier vegan brownie use coconut palm sugar. Equally, with the oil, you can use what you have to hand e.g. rapseed oil, sunflower oil or melted coconut oil.
It's up to you how you decorate the brownies. Simple or more extravagant; both taste delicious. You could just do a simple cocoa dusting, and top with some fresh raspberries (frozen raspberries also work well if you can’t get hold of fresh). Or you can melt a load of chocolate with non-dairy milk and spread it all over the brownies as a vegan ganache (recipe below), then top with raspberries.
Serve warm with our 4 Ingredient Vegan Chocolate and Nut Butter Icecream - serious chocolate heaven!
I hope you love these Vegan Valentine's Brownies as much as I do!
If you've loved these Vegan Valentine's Brownies, you might also like these recipes:
Raspberry & White Chocolate Blondies
Nut Butter, Chocolate & Blueberry Blondies
If you liked our Vegan Brownie recipe, please rate and comment - this really helps others discover and try our yummy food!
Vanessa's Vegan Raspberry Brownies
Ingredients
- 250 ml vegetable oil (or melted coconut oil) (1 cup)
- 200 g brown sugar (1 cup)
- 200 g milled linseed / flaxseed (2 cups)
- 550 ml water (2 ¼ cups)
- 90 g cocoa / cacao powder (¾ cup) extra for dusting, optional
- 180 g plain flour (1 ⅔ cups) almond flour works for the gluten free version
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 30 g Freeze-dried raspberries (¼ cup)
- 300 g vegan chocolate, chopped (2 cups)
Vegan Chocolate Ganache (optional)
- 200 g dark vegan chocolate (1 ⅓ cups)
- 120 ml non-dairy milk (½ cup)
- Fresh raspberries for decorating
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200⁰C. Line and grease standard brownie tin.
- Mix together the oil and sugar, until the sugar is totally dissolved.
- In a separate bowl mix the milled linseed / flaxseed and water, until it creates a jelly-like substance.
- Add the linseed / flaxseed and water to the oil and sugar, and mix well.
- Sift the cocoa powder, plain flour and baking powder and add to the sugar, oil and linseed mix. Mix all ingredients together well. Don’t worry if you still see bits of linseed after a very good mix – that’s normal and won’t show up when baked.
- Add the chopped chocolate and raspberries. Mix in. Pour into baking tin and make sure mixture is level.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes. They will be done when a skewer comes out clean (but of course the skewer may have melted chocolate on it). They should feel nice and firm whne you press them in the middle of the tin. Just cook for longer if needed.
- Once baked, leave to cool in baking tin for 30 mins or a bit more. Then transfer onto a cooling rack.
- Once fully cooled, cut into squares.
Vegan Chocolate Ganache (optional)
- Break up the chocolate and place in a glass bowl above simmering water. Once the chocolate is melted, remove from the heat and let cool for a minute.
- Slowly stir in the non-dairy milk, a little bit at a time (this stops it from splitting).
- Top each brownie with the ganache.
- Top brownies with raspberries once the ganache has cooled a little.
Other decoration idea
- For a more simple decoration, dust the brownies with cocoa powder, and perhaps top with a few raspberries.
So good!
Really tasty brownie!! Fully recommend
A recipe I'm keeping in my back pocket. My non-vegan friends (including myself) were very impressed.