Marshmallow Fluff Brownies – VeganMoFo Day 22

So, today’s VeganMoFo is about Fancy, but Frugal. I don’t actually do a whole ton of “fancy” food – you know, haute cuisine, giant plates with teeny portions of food, exotic ingredients – most of my savoury food is firmly in the home cooking, comfort food genre. If you want something fancy from me, it’s going to be a dessert. And so, I made brownies.

This may be my fourth brownie recipe on this blog, but it’s SO worth it. It uses pretty much the base recipe from my fudgy brownies, but it’s topped with marshmallow! Vegan marshmallows are, as you probably know, a bit expensive, but this isn’t! It’s made using aquafaba, which you use in the brownies anyway, and you probably have leftover from chickpeas.

The brownies end up topped with a fluffy, gooey, sweet cloud of marshmallow fluff that’s toasted lightly under the grill (or, broiler to some – apparently they’re the same thing) to give it a caramelised top. When I say lightly, I mean it – sugar caramelises very quickly so you have to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn, burnt sugar is nasty.

The marshmallow fluff is based on what I used for these hot chocolate cupcakes, though you make less fluff (the perfect amount to cover the brownies!). It has xanthan gum in, which is necessary as it gives the fluff that gooey, slightly stretchy texture that marshmallow fluff has, but also more importantly stops the fluff from losing its shape – if you don’t put it in, it’ll look fine for a little, but disintegrate very shortly, which is very sad. You only need a small amount of xanthan gum, and it lasts forever, so it’s a good investment, and it means you can always whip up fluff when you like! (it goes great on hot chocolate).

Marshmallow Fluff Brownies

• Servings: 25 brownies
• Print

Ingredients

For the Brownies
• 115g vegan dark chocolate, broken in to pieces
• 50g cocoa powder
• 90g vegan butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 4 tbsp aquafaba
• 360g white sugar
• 50ml milk of choice
• 300g plain flour
• 100g chocolate chips
For the Fluff
• 100ml aquafaba
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 200g icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp xanthan gum

Directions

Preheat the oven to 175C/350F
1. Begin by placing the chocolate, cocoa powder, and butter in a heat proof bowl and melting (I do this in the microwave, but a double boiler is fine too!).
2. Once melted, add the vanilla, salt, bicarb, baking powder, aquafaba, and milk, and stir until combined.
3. Whisk in the sugar well.
4. Fold through the flour and chocolate chips.
5. Press the brownie mixture into a lined tin – it’ll be quite thick, but that’s a good thing!
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, until a knife inserted comes out clean.
7. Leave the brownies to cool completely before making the topping.
8. To make the topping, begin by placing the aquafaba in a very clean bowl (important – if it’s at all greasy it won’t whip!).
9. Set aside 50g of the icing sugar, and add the xanthan gum to it, and mix well.
10. To the aquafaba, add the vanilla extract and cream of tartar.
11. Whisk the aquafaba with an electric mixer until it forms stiff peaks – up to ten minutes.
12. Now, with the mixer running, add the plain icing sugar a spoonful at a time, allowing it to combine.
13. Once the plain icing sugar is added, add the xanthan gum mixture a spoonful at a time, with the mixer still running.
14. Once thoroughly combined, your fluff is done! Spread it evenly over your brownies.
15. Preheat your grill (or broiler).
16. Place the fluff topped brownies under the grill, and grill until turning brown on top (watch carefully, as they can turn very quickly!).
17. Leave to cool, and then slice into individual brownies.

Bourbon Biscuit Brownies

These brownies are both biscuit and brownie. Not in the way that my brookies were a cross between a brownie and a cookie, but in the way that they’re brownies, stuffed full of biscuits! This recipe fits right in with March’s MiniMoFo challenge of “stuffed and filled foods” (indeed, bourbons are a filled biscuit, which in this case are then stuffed inside brownies!), and also has some cool alliteration in the recipe title.

Have you ever had a Bourbon Biscuit? If you’re not British, then maybe not. Bourbon biscuits are a rectangular cocoa biscuit with a chocolatey filling. If you’re American, the closest you can get would be a chocolate cream filled oreo, they’re different, but they’d work the same in this recipe. Bourbons do not actually have anything to do with the drink, bourbon, and are quite non-alcoholic, being a favourite to dunk into a cup of tea. Many supermarket versions are vegan, just check the packet before you buy!

These brownies use bourbon biscuits much like other brownies use chocolate chips. The biscuits get chopped up (surprisingly easy to do) and stirred into the batter, with a few placed on top before baking. They’re super chocolatey and great for fans of the popular biscuit!

• Servings: 20 brownies
• Print

Ingredients

• 200g bourbon biscuits, chopped into roughly 1cm pieces (with a few reserved to top the brownies)
• 100g vegan butter
• 50g dark chocolate
• 225g sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 50g cocoa
• pinch salt
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 175ml milk of choice
• 300g plain flour

Directions

Preheat the oven to 170C/340F and line a baking dish
1. In a large bowl, melt together the butter and chocolate.
2. Add the sugar, vanilla, cocoa, salt, and bicarbonate of soda, and mix well.
3. Stir in the milk until well combined.
4. Add the flour and mix through.
5. Fold in the chopped bourbon biscuits until evenly distributed.
6. Pour the batter into your prepared tin, and top with the remaining biscuits.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, until a knife comes out clean.
8. Cool in the tin, then slice and eat!

Fudgy Chocolate Brownies

It’s true, I already have a brownie recipe on my blog, posted nearly two years ago! And those brownies are really great and super simple to make. But they’re cakey brownies – which I think are great, but there’s always room for more than one type of brownie! These brownies are fudgy, gooey, sticky, and indulgent – mmm!

With fudgy centres and a crackly top, these brownies are pretty much perfect. I make them with chocolate chips, because you can never have enough chocolate, right? But you could also jazz them up with walnuts or dried cherries if those take your fancy!

They’re a little more involved than my regular brownies, and they use aquafaba, which I’ve explained in a previous post – it’s the liquid from a tin of beans or chickpeas! Yeah, weird right? But it works, so well. And, I’m not joking, you cannot taste beans in the slightest! Do me a favour and just try it, okay?

Fudgy Brownies

• Servings: 20 brownies
• Print

Ingredients

• 115g dark chocolate, broken into chunks
• 60g cocoa powder
• 90g vegan butter (I used vitalite)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 4 tbsp aquafaba
• 360g sugar
• 50ml milk of choice (I used oat milk)
• 265g plain flour
• 100g chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 175C/350F/Gas Mark 4
1. In a heat-proof bowl, combine the dark chocolate, cocoa powder, and vegan butter. Either in a microwave, or over a double boiler, heat until the chocolate is completely melted.
2. Into the melted mixture, stir the vanilla, salt, milk, bicarbonate of soda, and aquafaba, and mix until well combined.
3. Add in the sugar and mix with a fork until completely mixed in.
4. Gently fold through the flour until there are no pockets of flour remaining.
5. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips. The mixture is quite thick at this point – that’s what it’s meant to be like!
6. Transfer the mixture into a baking dish and press down until evenly spread.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, until a knife inserted in the middle comes out mostly clean.
8. Leave to cool before slicing, if you can resist!

Thank you to veganbaking.net for the recipe inspiration!