Makes 12 brownies
If there’s a better combination than chocolate and raspberries then I don’t know it. These brownies are dense and truffle-like, with lots and lots of melt-in-your-mouth raspberry flavor from both jam and whole berries. And here’s the amazing thing…they’re low in fat, high in fiber and made with whole wheat pastry flour! But don’t let that deter you, you’d never know it.
I’ve been hard at work developing healthier dessert recipes for the upcoming Forks Over Knives cookbook! I said “healthier” not “healthy” because dessert, no matter how healthy, is an indulgence. But if we’re going to indulge (and we definitely are), why not try to make those treats as nutritious as possible? Developing these treats has been a fun challenge and I’m getting a kick out of experimenting with whole grain flours, natural sweeteners and alternative sources of fat. I also like that the recipes don’t have to be too restrictive; some fats are cool to use in moderation, like nut butters, avocado and chocolate.
But back to these brownies! Valentine’s Day is coming up and you’ll surely want to make these for the one you love. Maybe you’d like to scatter brownies on the bed instead of rose petals?
A few recipe notes:
~This is one of those rare occasions where frozen fruit actually works better than fresh, so don’t worry about raspberries being out of season. The batter is very thick and I’m pretty sure that fresh raspberries would get crushed as you tried to knead them in.
~Use a naturally sweetened fruit spread if you can find one.
~For the dry sweetener, I use Sucanat, but any sugar will do.
~To get brownies as fudgy as possible, be careful not to overbake. These really benefit from chilling in the fridge for a few hours.
~To slice brownies, use a blunt knife (a butter knife or a plastic knife) and dip in water after each slice.
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup raspberry fruit spread
1/2 cup sugar or other dry sweetener (see note)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup frozen raspberries
Preheat oven to 350 F. Line an 8 inch pan with parchment paper and lightly mist with non-stick cooking spray.
Melt the chocolate in either a double boiler or the microwave. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, vigorously mix together the jam, sweetener, and apple sauce. Stir in the extracts and the melted chocolate.
Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix very well until a stiff dough forms. Fold in the raspberries. Spread the mixture into the prepared pan. It will be very thick, you’ll probably need to use your hands to evenly spread the batter.
Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, they should still be soft and gooey. If a tester toothpick comes out clean, they’re overbaked. Remove from oven and let cool completely. These taste especially good and fudgy after being refrigerated for a few hours.
Hummina hummina…made these today, didn’t have any whole raspberries so I just left them out, they are dreeeamy.
These look FANTASTIC can’t wait to try Isa!
Thanks!
Esen
cookbooksandcake.blogspot.com
Is 1/2 cup the amount of normal/white sugar you would use? I’m trying to substitute in some Stevia (couldn’t locate Sucanat), but don’t know how to do the conversion.
I made these the other day and LOVED them!!! I never baked with Sucanat but I am glad I used it in this recipe. The brownies tasted more like truffles but that’s what made them even more decadent to me 😉
For those of you who want to see photos of the recipe step by step (including the thick batter and the fudgy inside) I posted them on my blog for everyone to see for inspiration. http://www.therealveganhousewife.com/?p=120
Thank you Isa for posting this recipe and good luck with the new Forks Over Knives Cookbook!!!
Thanks for the step by step!
I’m impressed with the dry, no calorie sweetener erythritol (I bought a bag of it under the brand name “Zero”). It looks and acts like sugar without bitterness or weird aftertastes. I have not baked with it yet. In addition, NutritionFacts.org proclaims it the only harmless artificial sweetener. Here’s a link to a video describing the potential harms caused by other “fake” sweeteners. Lots of the other videos about nutrition are worth a look, too.
http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/a-harmless-artificial-sweetener/
I love you Isa…I mean really, really love you. Please do more of this kind of recipe. I will love you even more….
Isa, you are utterly inspiring. I’m making these for my sweetheart now. She’s making my favorite food for dinner, and I’m bringing dessert. Little does she know… 🙂
Didn’t have applesauce, so I substituted a half can of coconut milk. To bring out the coconut flavor, sprinkled the top with coconut flakes. Also subbed blackberry jam and added a little ginger powder. These are gonna be stellar. Thank you dearly!
These are really good. I made them in mini-muffin format (24) and they turned out pretty cakey, but delicous. Next time I might bake for 12-14 minutes instead.
We just came across your delicious vegan blog! If you are ever in Phnom Penh, Cambodia please come and join us for a meal at our restaurant, K’NYAY Khmer & Vegan cuisine (www.knyay.com). We were the first restaurant in Camodia offering purely vegan versions of traditional Khmer dishes and also a selection of non-Khmer vegan items on our menu. Keep up the fabulous blog! Run, Sern & David at K’NYAY
Can I use yugart or sour cream instaedof apple sauce?
I love the Truffle Brownies.
i just made these tonight and they are wonderful! i followed the instructions exactly. Popped them right in the fridge after they came out of the oven.
These are insanely yummy. I ended up subbing 1/3 c of the wheat flour with almond flour, and it came out great. Thank you Isa!
Stupid question, but… why a blunt knife? Feel free not to answer… 🙂
It’s a mystery but somehow it works better for brownies! I honestly don’t understand it myself, but it cuts cleaner.
These are sort of similar to the fudgy wudgy blueberry brownies in VCON, but I never put those in the fridge after baking. Should I do the same with those? Because it worked beautifully with these raspberry ones!
You caught me! I modified the recipe from those. The batter is a bit different but yes, those would be great chilled as well.
I made these brownies and fed them to my non-vegan family and they loved them! I also loved how easy they were to make! Thanks 🙂
Commenting bc Isa’s Twitter said all non-commenters would be purged. These look scrummy though!
I think something might be wrong with my oven. I baked these for 1/2 hour and they are still very gooey. A toothpick does NOT come out clean. Also I am very wary about the fact that these are supposed to come out gooey.
Do you have an oven thermometer? And why are you wary?
Hi Isa! I am a big fan of your cookbooks and have made 6 batches of your sweet potato drop biscuits alone in the last week! It’s great to hear that you are contributing to a Forks Over Knives cookbook. My husband, in-laws, and I watched the documentary at Thanksgiving and have been trying as much as possible to have a plant-based diet. (Been beef/pork-free for a couple decades and dairy-free for awhile since my sons are milk-allergic.) These brownies look and sound delicious. I’m out of unsweetened chocolate…I wonder if I could get away with trying 8 oz of semisweet chips and lower or eliminate the extra sugar?
I think that would work!
these took me almost half an hour to bake through! maybe it was because i used a round pan? but they’re still good! 🙂
I made these today in cupcake form and topped it with the chocolate mousse from vegan cupcakes take over the world and a raspberry. They are so cute! Delicious also, obv. Get it, girl!
These are so incredibly delicious. My husband and I just love them, and we even sent some to our parents. I love that they’re made with whole wheat.. but you’d never guess.
Got back from shopping in the midst of a snow storm and realized I hadn’t picked up the chocolate. Rather than going out again, I went with chunky peanut butter as a substitute. The cocoa, raspberries and peanut butter are amazing.
This recipe looks amazing! Made my blog’s: “Recipe of the Week”: http://happyrehabdoc.blogspot.com/2012/01/best-of-blogosphere-from-last-week.html. I am going to attempt to make a few adjustments to take the sugar (or sugar substitute) out–may take a few tries but I think it will be totally worth it–looks SOOOO good! Thanks for sharing this! (Love your book Appetite for Reduction btw)!
I had to throw my entire tin out after eating only one of them … I followed all of the instructions to a T and found the brownies to be really void of flavor and the consistency was so sticky and gooey – not in a good way. After chilling for a while, they only became more unappetizing. I was really bummed out because my boyfriend and I were looking forward to eating some brownies. We spent about $10 on jam, chocolate and cocoa powder and weren’t even able to eat it. I don’t know if the chocolate had much to do with it, but it made the entire brownie overpoweringly bitter. It’s unfortunate. It didn’t seem to rise well at all either. Here’s to next time! This one didn’t seem to be a big success, based upon other commenters’ observations.
Since raspberries are insanely expensive where I live, could I maybe go with mango, or pineapple? And fig jam? I think I’m going to give that a try…
So excited for the Forks Over Knives cookbook! You inspire me 🙂
Thank you!
I made these tonight and they came out great! I accidentally bought semi sweet chocolate, so I cut down on the sugar a little bit. I would have left them in the oven longer, but I decided to trust the recipe and take them out after 16 minutes. I’m glad I did! After refrigerating, they were very moist and truffle-y and fudgey! Can’t wait for the new cookbook! I already managed to pre-order it.
sooooo good! I had the hardest time gettting my roommate to stop eating the uncooked batter as I was preparing these! Bought waay too many apples at a nearby farmers market so I made homemade applesauce instead of storebought. I forgot the vanilla extract D: but they were still delicious. Thanks!
Isa, these look amazing, and I am dying to try them (and I promised them to my secretary). One problem: in the UK there’s no such thing as “whole wheat pastry flour,” or even “pastry flour,” for that matter. Any suggestions? Baking is not my forte, and I didn’t want to guess and end up with a complete disaster!! Thanks!! (P.S. Vegan with a Vengeance and Veganomicon made a massive difference to my life!)
Well you can always use all-purp flour or spelt.
I made these on Saturday and wow, delicious! I doubled the recipe and baked it in a 13×9 glass baking dish. I think its the glass that dried out the outside pieces slightly, but other than that, they were awesome. I did get a complaint that the almond extract flavor was too strong, but maybe in a standard batch that would have been fine.
Can’t wait to see more of your no-oil recipes in the FOK cookbook.
They taste fabulous! Thanks.
So COOL that you are working with Forks Over Knives on a new cookbook. I will be first in line to buy. FOK was the reason I went vegan… and you are the reason I’m able to stay a vegan. So THANK YOU!!!
These are awesome!! My husband and I took a taste before they were chilled, and we looked at each other and said, “DAMN!” These are amazing, seriously. These brownies could bring about peace in warring countries. Isa, you are a visionary and a gift to the world. 🙂
I just made them. and oh my oh my, they are delicious. I made them with strawberries instead because my grocery store didn’t have any frozen raspberries.
only thing was that I was too impatient to let them cool down completely before slicing them up. and it made such a mess and totally ruined the look of the brownies. now that they’ve been in the fridge for a little under an hour i can already see how important it is to let those cool down.
oh well, next time. 😀
WENDY: Nunaturals Stevia Baking Blend is the answer to the baking without sugar woes.
I use it exclusively for stuff I bake for me/my family/friends. I’ll still pull out the sugar for bake sales, etc. but for my normal baking, it’s all stevia. The blend you can use 1 for 1 for sugar… though I’ve had the best luck reducing slightly. I use about 2/3rds the amount of baking blend as I would sugar. The blend has gums and such that add bulk, so the texture doesn’t get wacked out.
I use it in my homemade ice cream/ frozen soy yogurt, too. It’s awesome!
And I’m super excited to try these. I HATE cakey brownies with the fire of a thousand burning suns so these guys look like they’ll be right up my alley, texture-wise. 🙂
OH. WOW! Just made these and they are incredibly, amazingly delicious. Decadent, flavorful, gooey magic. Thank you, IsaChandra, for your wonderful recipes. Wow. Wow!
Right on man! Those brownies look super good. I totally dig all your recipes and can’t wait to try these.
Any suggestions for making mini-brownie-bites-OF-THE-HEAVENS? I’ve got a mini-muffin pan that’s been judging me from beneath a moderate layer of dust for a while now… plus I feel like I’m having smaller portions when I use a mini-pan, regardless of how many are actually consumed.
Made these early this morning and took them to work for a potluck. Some people really, really liked them. Others were “meh” (they were too polite to say so, but I could tell). I thought the texture was great, and it was generally tasty, but there was a slight “vitaminey” aftertaste that I can’t pinpoint, and I have no idea what it might have been from since nothing in the ingredients list would taste vitaminy. Any ideas?
These were delicious!!! Will make again and again. You really do need to refrigerate them for a few hours, so allow time for this step. Highly recommended!
Woah my god, these are perfect.
Is the whole wheat pastry flour noticeable? My family gets really mad whenever I try to bake something healthy, but they need it. These brownies look awesome!
I’m not really sure how it would be if you don’t use it often, but no one who I fed these too noticed it. But you can do a mix of wwp and ap if you’re worried.
Oh. My. Gosh. Isa–These are UNBELIEVABLE. I had to use Oil as i was out of Applesauce (defeats the purpose, i know, but i’ll fix it next time). I have a convection-only oven, so i took the temp down 10 degrees. next time, i’lll probably take it down 20, but WOW. I made a double batch and everybody couldn’t stop talking about them!! (especially the omnis!!!!)
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!
I love you. ’nuff said.
Not sure if this is a silly question, but would these work in a pyrex? It’s pretty much all I’ve got.
One of my recipe testers didn’t have much success baking them in Pyrex.
Wow…those are delicious. I love the addition of the almond extract for some real sophistication. The texture and the whole raspberries…there is nothing I don’t LOVE about these. Thank you!!!
Just a btw, I made mine in Pyrex with parchment and had success.
I also bow down to you Isa and these truffle brownies! I’m trying to help my dad lose weight and he has a sweet tooth like me, so it was fun to show him a less fattening way to indulge a little. Is there any way to get nutritional info on the 12 brownies, as far as fiber/protein/calories? It’d be super helpful, thank you again Isa.