I forgot to mention that there was this one time I baked the red velvet cupcakes and was actually begging moms to take them from me on the playground. They are not the group who wants to eat a bunch of cupcakes. I should have stood next to the guy selling “Tobacco Pipes” on the sidewalk.

The vegan ones were brought to a party and the rosemary cookies were as well. The apple crisp was a fairly small amount (and yours truly consumed that!)

The whole family ate the bread and the pancakes and the biscuits.

The brownies? I ate most all of them and I am not at all proud of that. In fact, last night I was going to make more and then I realized that the entire pan is probably around 6,000 calories.

Needless to say, I did not make another batch last night.

I find the best brownies to be almost flourless, where they are kind of like a chocolate custard with crispy top and bottom, but gooey insides.

If you’re going eggless, try using a bit of the silken tofu that is pureed into a smooth cream in addition to the applesauce.

Also, now i know this sounds weird but its really not… instead of using applesauce you can use certain jars of babyfood, like the pureed sweet potatoes. They give a slightly different texture, and don’t have as much sweetness (which means you then have to rework the sugar amounts )

Everyone is different!

Some things I learned:

1. Use brown sugar when you can. If you don’t have it, add in a tbsp or two of straight molasses. The molasses really brings out the taste and texture of ‘gooey’

2. I generally use 4-5 eggs and a less flour 0 like a cup. The more eggs you use, the less flour you need.

3. I gave up on cocoa powder – its too dry. I use 3-4 oz of baking chocolate. I put a small pot of water on the stove and set it to simmer. Then I just put my mixing bowl with the chocolate and butter on top and check back every so often – it melts magically.

4. I’ve varied the butter from 1/2 bar to 2 bars. I think 1 bar works best, and you can work a recipe down to 3/4… but anything more or less just doesn’t have the right texture. If you want to cut down on butter, then do the straight vegan versions… they come out bad when you try to compromise.

5. If you use 1stick butter + baking cocoa, and go for gooey not cake-like, you generally don’t have to grease the pan.

6. To bring out the chocolate flavor, I’ll toss in a tsp or two of instant coffee… or a shot of espresso/moka/cold brew coffee.

7. If you want to go crazy, you can drop a few frozen raspberries or cherries into the pan. Figure out the ‘grid’ you’ll cut them into, and then aim for the center of each square. You can also put some peanut butter in a double boiler to melt, drizzle on top, and then use a knife to do criss-cross wave patterns into the batter. delicious.