Review Detail

 
Ultimate Vegan Brownies
Vegan Brownie Recipes
by Mattie    

Top 500 Reviewer
View all my reviews (1)
Rating 
 
4.0

Terrific Texture, Slight Off Taste

My family and I are new to being vegan (less than 2 weeks). I made these tonight and I have to say the texture is amazing! My comparison is the Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Brownies, which are the absolute gold standard in my book. My only issue, other than feeling like 35 minutes of baking was maybe 5 minutes too long, is the slight off taste the brownies have. They taste like... I'm guessing it's flax, a kind of seedy almost rancid taste. It's like the way wood polish or teak oil smells. I bought whole golden flax seeds in bulk this afternoon and ground my 2T right before I used them. I'm wondering if I might get rid of that taste by using the egg replacer EnerG. Will that affect the perfect brownie texture (chewy on the inside, crispy on the edges)?

Owner's reply

Thanks for the feedback on the brownies EmmaPeel! Regarding the baking time, I just performed some additional tests on the recipe and updated the recipe to call for a reduced baking time of 25 minutes. Thanks to other helpful commenters, the original 35 minute baking dime was a little too long.

Regarding the flax taste, I believe your flax seeds may have been too old. Fresh flax seeds don't have a rancid taste. Flax seed is extremely perishable so if they're stored at room temperature for any more than a couple months they can develop linseed oil flavors as the oils rapidly oxidize. All it takes is a few months between coming off the plant and being used in your kitchen for them to become rancid. I recommend looking into another source of whole golden flax seeds to get around this issue in the future. Good luck!

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