Vegan Chocolate Brownies

Continuing my vegan baking spree today I went for some chocolate brownies. They're similar in texture to my Guiness Brownies - dense and fudgey - you'd never guess they're dairy free, gluten+wheat free and suitable for vegans! 

In my baking I find its often pretty easy to adapt recipes to make them gluten free, so what I'm really trying to do at the moment is to make my recipes dairy free too. Although I'm not vegan, I'm enjoying the challenge of going that extra step and making everything vegan as well and I'm really enjoying the results so far. I know my blogs pretty dominated by brownie recipes but I promise these ones are just as good as the ones laden with butter and all the rest, but maybe just that little bit better for you. You'll thank me for this one later.

Ingredients:

113 g (4 ounces) vegan semisweet chocolate (chopped bar or chips) - Bakers semi-sweet chocolate squares are vegan and come in 1oz squares so these were perfect!

(optional extra 70g chopped chocolate or chocolate chips)
1/4 cup (60 ml) coconut oil, melted
120 g (1/2 cup) plain or vanilla soya yogurt
200 g (1 cup) light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons  vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
120 g (1 cup) plain flour (I used GF)
Makes 16 brownies

To Make:

• Preheat oven to 180°C. 
• Lightly grease and flour an 8-inch (20-cm) square baking pan.
• Combine the chocolate with the oil. Heat in the microwave in 1-minute increments, stirring occasionally to make sure the chocolate is melted but doesn’t overheat.
• Stir the yogurt, sugar, salt, and vanilla in the melted chocolate. 
• Sift in the flour and baking powder and stir to combine with the wet ingredients.
• Add in the extra chocolate, if using.
• Pour into prepared pan and spread to even.

• Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the edges just begin to pull away from the pan.
• The brownies are at their absolute best when they are given time to cool in the pan, and chilled in the fridge (still in the pan) for a few hours.