Vegan brookies with peanut butter swirl
Vegan brookies with peanut butter swirl
We are flat out looking for a new place to rent, which is proving challenging due to the fact that our little furry companion, Tina, isn’t a valuable addition to a household in most landlords’ eyes. I must say that we are very hurt and disappointed by this. I mean, isn’t England the country of cat lovers, for God’s sake?
The time is ticking and we are growing a bit more concerned by the day. Luckily, Duncan’s family – who have been hosting us since our arrival last week, have once again saved the day. Duncan’s cousin, Sydney, has agreed to keep Tina while we are renting as she loves cats and her house has a massive garden, which Tina loves. We hope it doesn’t come to that, but equally we do need to find somewhere to live eventually, especially that all our stuff is going to turn up here rather soon…
While we are both stressing about making sure we have a roof over our three heads – Duncan is on the phone to recruiters, I am frantically looking for a suitable house to live in – Tina spends her nights prowling the garden and days curled up on a chair in the conservatory, sleeping like an angel and enjoying occasional sun rays on her back. We have only been here for just over a week, yet Tina has managed to grow an extra fluffy coat in response to colder temperatures – it’s crazy how adaptable cats are!
While Duncan’s family have been amazing and are encouraging us to use their kitchen as much as we want, I am really looking forward to moving into our own house and getting down to some proper recipe creation again. I have plenty of ideas mulling around in my head and I cannot wait to do some testing. Meanwhile, here are our peanut butter brookies, which we shot a while back. They are based on my previous brookies recipe, yet the peanut butter addition brings them to a new level of indulgence ๐ Enjoy!
- 130 g / 4.5 oz vegan dark chocolate (I used semi-sweet 70% cacao)
- 1 tbsp melted coconut oil
- 45 g / ยฝ cup almond flour*
- 30 g / ยผ cup buckwheat flour
- 15 g / 2 tbsp cornflour / cornstarch
- ยฝ tsp baking powder
- 90 ml / ยผ cup + 2 tbsp aquafaba
- ยฝ tsp vinegar (apple cider vinegar or white vinegar)
- 90 g / 3/8 cup caster sugar
- 5 tsp smooth, unsweetened peanut butter (ยฝ tsp per cookie)
- coarse sea salt, to decorate
- Break up the chocolate with your hands – or hit an unopened packet against your workbench a few times for a sort of therapy. Place the chocolate and coconut oil in a glass bowl over a water bath (bain-marie). Make sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Simmer on a very low heat until the chocolate has melted. Give the mixture a good stir and take the bowl off the heat to cool down.
- Place the ground almonds, buckwheat flour, cornflour / cornstarch and baking powder in a small bowl. Mix very well.
- Pre-heat the oven to 175ยฐ C / 345ยฐ F. Line a baking tray with a piece of baking paper.
- In a clean metal or glass bowl whip aquafaba and vinegar until you get stiff peaks. It is very important that the bowl has no grease residue as this will prevent the aquafaba from reaching stiff peaks. Once the aquafaba is at the stiff peaks stage (turn the bowl upside down, if aquafaba does not slide down at all, it means that it has reached stiff peaks) start adding sugar very gradually, half a tablespoon at the time, whipping well after each addition.
- Gradually (and gently so that you don’t knock too much air out of the whipped aquafaba) fold flour and baking powder mixture into whipped aquafaba with a spatula or a spoon.
- Next, incorporate melted chocolate slowly until you achieve an even looking batter.
- Spoon the batter onto the prepared baking tray. I went for 9 large cookies, but you can make 12 smaller ones instead. Decorate each cookie with about half a teaspoon of smooth peanut butter swirled around with a toothpick and a light sprinkle of salt.
- Bake for about 10 (smaller ones) to 11 minutes (larger ones). Remove the tray from the oven and allow the cookies to cool down completely before eating (they may be a little fragile until they are cool). Keep in a dry cupboard in an air-tight container as these cookies absorb humidity easily.
I just found this cookie recipe and Iโm literally drooling on my phone screen right now ๐ ๐คค These look simply to die for ๐ชโจ๐
Will definitely give them a go soon.
Thanks for the recipe, Iโve been looking for this kind of cookie being veganized for some time.
XOXO, Romy
Oh no, I'm so sorry to hear that - it sounds like your chocolate must have seized, unfortunately. It's quite a delicate ingredient and notoriously difficult to work with. I suspect adding it in all at once might have been an issue, I'm afraid. Perhaps adding a splash of water may recover it although the cookies won't be quite the texture they would be without it. Ania
Have you tried leaving the batter in the fridge or not using it straight away?
I need to bake some cookies for the weekend and for normal cookie dough i would leave in the fridge for a couple of days, but I'm not sure about this because it might impact the whipped element.
Thanks
Kat
No, I haven't, but my feeling is that it won't work as aquafaba might deflate completely. On the other hand, I also make this chocolate mousse in many forms (mousse pots, cake layers, whipped cream) with aquafaba and putting it in the fridge sets it nicely so I may be wrong. I guess it may be worth trying on a half a batch of you have time. Ania
i really enjoyed whipping up the aquafaba (for the first time!) and was amazed by its stiffness.
the cookies looked wonderful in unfinished form but then i put them in the oven. :-(
they 'melted', went flat and spread to almost twice the size ,were full of air-holes.
but worst of all the never went crunchy or 'stiff', they remained floppy and fall apart instantly.
the kids say the taste is amazing and eat it with spoons off the baking tray.
do you have any idea where i went wrong?
thank you so much for your help!
I'm glad to hear that your ingredients didn't go to waste ;) , but sorry to hear that they didn't come out quite right. Spreading is to do with the either the ratio of dry ingredients to wet ones (as baking is a science I recommend weighing your dry ingredients rather than using cup measurements) or perhaps aquafaba wasn't quite stiff enough - did you manage to successfully turn the bowl upside down at the end without any movement from aquafaba? As for stiffness, I find that humidity has a big part to play. When we used to live by the sea, they were definitely more floppy, especially during summer months. Also, sugar is massively important when it comes to the crispy exterior so I would advise against using less or making any substitutions as most of them do not behave exactly like sugar in baking. I'm happy to troubleshoot further if you have any more questions. Ania
the aquafaba was perfect, but maybe i was a bit sloppy with the ingredients. i'm more of a cook than a baker and used to improvise. so maybe there was too much aquafaba in it...
anyway, i'll get there!
I am not entirely sure as I haven't tried it, but from what I read granulated sugar is quite a bit coarser so it may not melt entirely in the final product. I would recommend grinding it down a little in a coffee grinder if you own one. Hope that helps! Ania
Acid (apple cider vinegar) is optional - just like with egg whites, it helps to stabilise the meringue but it is not necessary to achieve stiff peaks. Did you make any sugar substitutions or did you use less? That's what usually causes the cookies to look a little different, or if there wasn't quite enough flour, for example. Let me know - I'm sure we can get to the bottom of this! Ania
Thanks, Brenda
Mine was sweetened but not overly so. Hope that helps! Ania
Can I replace the sugar with any syrup??
Thanks in advance!
I haven't tried and I reckon the recipe may need some tweaking or else the cookies will spread too much. Best to try on a small batch, I would say. Ania
Can I use flax gel instead of aquafaba?
Blessings, Vita.
I am not sure on this one - does flax gel whip up like egg whites? If it does, sure - worth a try, although I have not tried myself. I would love to hear what you thought if you do try! Ania
Can I use regular Flour in this recipe?
Thanx in advance
yumi
Yes, simply replace buckwheat flour and cornstarch with white wheat flour, do use almond flour though to preserve light texture. Hope that helps! Ania