They’re not the ones.
Brownies are quite variable things, depending on your preferences. From the light and fluffy to heavy and indulgent, almost every baker (Or eater, in addition) has a different idea of what the “perfect” brownie would taste like. Generally, I think of brownies as falling somewhere between fudge and a cake, because otherwise… Well, they would be either a fudge or a cake, right?!
With so many recipes floating around out there on the internet and in nearly every cookbook ever written, I decided to just dive in. Gotta start somewhere, I figured.
This pan of chocolate goodness was kindly submitted on Recipezaar, which I decided to jazz up a bit to create a light background of strawberry flavor on the unsuspecting palate. To do so, I merely substituted the apple sauce for pureed frozen strawberries, and used the exact same cheater’s frosting as on my cupcakes, drizzled on top.
Their shortcomings, of course, are in the texture department. As you can see from the above photo, they do have a moist, dense crumb, but are still rather cakey when it comes to brownies. This is not to say that they were a total failure of course. The plate that I brought to share at school was devoured within 2 hours of being unwrapped! What made me happiest, however, was when my mom told me that when instead of taking asprin for a headache she opted to eat two of these browies, and it cured her pain almost instantly.
If you’re looking for a more intense flavor of strawberry, I might suggest adding in some chopped strawberries, or even a teaspoon or so of strawberry extract. I think that the whisper of added flavor makes them more interesting, personally.
A good effort with tasty results… but the quest for the perfect vegan brownie continues.