Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Brownies    by Michael Tighe (Febrary 2015)
URL of this page: http://users.rcn.com/tighe/recipes/brownies.html
This recipe is derived from a book by Jane Zukin on Dairy-Free Baking (ISBN-13: 978-0761514671) published in 1998.
If you use the oat-based gluten-free flour described here you can use her recipe almost unchanged. See the notes below if you are interested in my specific choice of ingredients.
Prep:
  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F)
  • grease a 9 inch baking pan (I use canola oil)
Ingredients:
  • 1/2 cup of dairy free margarine (1 stick)
  • 1 cup plus 2 TBSP Sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 3/4 cup flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 1/2 tsp xanthum gum (only if you use GF flour)
  • 1 cup of chocolate chips
Steps
  1. cream the sugar and margarine in a mixer
  2. add eggs and vanilla and blend till smooth
  3. mix the other dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder. cocoa powder)
  4. combine dry ingredients with sugar/margerine
  5. mix in the chocolate chips
  6. pour into pan
  7. bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes
Notes
  • I sometimes warm the margarine slightly in the microwave to bring it to room temperature. It "creams" (or blends smoothly) much better if you do that. If you try to "cream" with the sugar when it is cold - it doesn't mix as well and leaves the resulting batter a little grainy.
  • You should buy chocolate chips that taste good and use those in your recipes.
    • I use Divvies brand chocolate chips (web) because they taste good and are dairy/peanut/gluten/tree-nut free. They do have soy, so they are not usable for soy-free recipes.
    • Enjoy Life makes soy-free chocolate chips (web). I find that they aren't as tasty as the Divvies. Your mileage may vary.
  • I use Fleischman's Unsalted Margarine (web). I don't miss the salt and I don't add any salt to my recipes.
  • I use canola oil as a substitute for margarine with good results. I actually think that canola oil works better than margarine substitutes because it is smoother.
  • For a gluten-free flour for these brownies, I use my ordinary mix of 40% soy flour, 30% tapioca flour and 30% corn starch (all by weight). You measure a cup by weight - use 140 grains as a "cup" of flour. So the "3/4 cup" is 0.75*140 = 105 grains. NOTE: The soy-flour is thisty. I have to add water every time I use it in a recipe.
  • There's a better gluten-free flour for brownies: 40% gluten-free oats, 30% potato starch and 30% corn starch. See my notes (here) on this solution (which is also SOY-FREE). We can't use it in our house, so I don't make this anymore. In general, the oat-flours (assuming you can get gluten-free) taste better than the soy-flour.
 
Comments welcome: send mail to me at: tighe@rcn.com
Last updated: February 2015.