Hello to all out there This is my first online recipe. I give to you: The simplest brownie ever + a salted-caramel glaze. And it’s vegan 🙂

Today I would like to present to you a very simple brownie recipe, it is probably one of the first things that I have ever baked and it is basically foolproof. From the get go I would like to say that this is more the fluffy kind of brownie.

And yes it happens to be a vegan recipe. But this is just a coincidence, please don’t hold this against it and give it a try.

1. First of all, the Brownie.

What do we need? Well it’s a very simple list:

• 1 1/4 cup water (280 ml)

• 2 cups sugar (400 g) – i know it sounds like a lot, but it works

• 8 tbsp oil (sunflower oil tends to work best)

• 2 cups of flour (260 g)

• 8 tbsp cacao powder (65 g)

• 2 tbsp baking powder (16 g)

• some vanila or rum-aroma (optional)

• rum soaked raisins (a must), walnuts (optional)

And that is basically it, you mix everything together

And bake it at 180° C for about 40 minutes.

I tend to live it about 95% baked, and that gives it a nice gooey, chewy texture.

I find that 40 min. is perfect for that lovely chewyness inside but if you don’t want that just live it in for another 10-15 Minutes.

Should you decide to bake it longer, cover it with a bit of aluminium foil or a damp piece of baking paper or it will dry out on the top.

This being said, this is the very basic and simple form of it, I normally like to add some rum and vanilla to the mix, and if I have them around the house also some walnuts (roast them a bit before doing that, it really brings out the flavour).

I don’t know why but for me chocolate always seems to go good with rum flavour.

After taking it out of the oven live it to cool to room temperature and then you can enjoy it with a simple dusting of powdered sugar.

2. The Glaze

I tend to do a glaze for it sometimes, and there is the simple way to do that, where you take some chocolate (vegan if you must) melt it on a water bath and pour it over the cake, but I usually do a chocolate or caramel glaze of my own. Also a very delicious option is a whipped coffee glaze, which I will try to share with you sometime.

This time I decided to go with salted-caramel. For the home-made caramel glaze you will need:

• 5 tbsp sugar (100 g)

• 50 g of margarine or butter (I prefer butter, but if you want to keep it vegan go with a good margarine that is as tasteless as possible)

• 5 g salt (1 tsp.)

Put the sugar into a preheated saucepan and bring it slowly to the melting point, then let it go slightly golden (if it goes dark brown it tends to be bitter) and add the butter or margarine.

If the mixture is to thick you can dilute it with a couple of spoons of cream or almond milk (10-20 ml).

When you do this be careful it tends to bubble up quite a lot. Mix it together and take it off the stove. Add the salt and mix it one more time. Then you can add it to the brownie, I like adding it still hot because it soaks more into the brownie.  

And now you have the perfect salted caramel brownie.

And enjoy. If possible with a lambic kriek from belgium 🙂