The Ultimate Aquafaba Brownies (Vegan)

The Best Eggless Fudgy Brownie Recipe (without a Double Boiler)

I’ve been working on this fudgy aquafaba brownies recipe for many months now, and today I’m excited to finally share it with you!

These delicious, ultra-chocolatey vegan brownies are made without eggs or dairy, yet you’d never tell the difference. These brownies are made with easy to find ingredients in a single bowl, without the need for a double boiler or a stand mixer, with only about 10 minutes of hands-on time.

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I’ve professed my love for chocolate many times here on the blog (see my recipes for healthy vegan chocolate muffins, or vegan chocolate chip banana bread, or 3-ingredient vegan chocolates).

Since brownies are every chocolate lover’s ultimate treat, I’ve tried countless vegan brownie recipes since going vegan in 2013.

Most of them were good, but just not as good as those moist, ultra-fudgy brownies most of us remember from our pre-vegan days. Those recipes usually called for so much eggs and butter that making them felt like committing a crime.

Another thing I’m not a fan of in the majority of brownie recipes, vegan or not: the dreaded double boiler! I know it’s fairly simple, and a lot of bakers swear by it, but I’m just too lazy.

For a while I thought: if only there was a way to make delicious fudgy brownies without eggs or butter AND without using a double boiler…

And then one day I found a recipe that was ALMOST there. It was in the America’s Test Kitchen Vegan for Everybody cookbook.

You know those guys treat every recipe like a scientific experiment. They test it countless times to find a winning combination of ingredients and technique.

Flavor-wise, the brownies from their vegan cookbook were amazing – super chocolatey, with a lovely crinkly top. There was no double boiler in sight either!

But the texture kind of resembled a dense chocolate cake. Not awful if you’re there just for the flavor, but not ideal if you’re trying to achieve a gooey, fudgy texture.

That got me thinking: what could I do to create a perfect vegan brownie that would be just as rich and chocolatey, but with a fudgier consistency? Would that mean that I’d have to out-do THE America’s Test Kitchen?

After many months of trying various ingredient combinations, cookware types, baking methods, cooling techniques, etc. I’m finally excited to say: I did it!

In this post I’ll tell you exactly what I did, so pay attention ?

How to Make Brownies Extra Fudgy

Getting that perfectly fudgy texture in brownies is somewhat of a science. Thankfully, learning it isn’t so complicated that you’d need to go back to college.

Here are a few tips and tricks for how to make brownies extra fudgy (my aquafaba brownie recipe below uses all of them):

1. Use more oil and less flour than in other baking goods. If you’ve ever messed up the fat and flour proportions in cakes or muffins, you know about the stodgy mess they can turn into. In brownies, however, this works to our advantage.

2. No baking powder or baking soda! Those ingredients create air pockets in the batter, which helps the batter rise and become fluffy as it bakes. Perfectly fine if you’re making a cake, but not so good for brownies.

3. Add extra moistness by using brown sugar. According to Grandbaby Cakes, the molasses lingering to sugar crystals infuse the brownies with extra moistness. (Plus, they give the brownies a distinct flavor depth).

4. Slightly underbake the brownies. This is another method to make sure that the moistness stays in. Take your brownies out of the oven as soon as their edges look baked through; the center isn’t too wiggly; and the top surface looks glossy with just a little bit of cracking. (It will crack more once the brownies cool.)

5. Get rapping! No, I’m not talking about channeling your inner hip hop artist. According to The Kitchn, rapping is an old-school technique of physically forcing air pockets out of the batter, which causes the batter to deflate.

Rapping is simple: about halfway through the baking process, without taking the brownie pan out of the oven, lift it about 2 inches above the oven rack, then drop it back down. Air pockets – out, fudgy texture – in! Do it a few times if needed.

6. Use a metal baking pan instead of a glass or a ceramic one. This comes down to the thickness of the walls + how good each material is at retaining heat.

Glass and ceramic have thicker walls, and stay hot for a while after you take them out of the oven. Since we can’t take the brownies out of the pan right away (they’re too gooey), we’ll have to let them sit in the pan for a while.

Trouble is, the hot, thick walls of glass or ceramic will continue baking our brownies. As a result, they’ll go right past that underbaked stage (see #4 above). Goodbye perfect fudginess!

A metal baking pan, however, has thinner walls, and releases heat much quicker – just what we want for a fudgy texture.

We’ll get even better results if we…

7. Put the brownie pan in the fridge for 1 hour right after taking it out of the oven. This ensures that the brownies stop baking as quickly as possible, which helps them stay moist and fudgy.

How to Make Brownies Without a Double Boiler

How do you make brownies without a double boiler?

The main purpose of using a double boiler (a.k.a. bain marie) in brownies is to evenly melt chocolate without burning it.

Melted chocolate is one of the key components of traditional brownies that contributes to their deliciously moist, fudgy texture.

However, chocolate can be finicky. Try melting it in the microwave, and it won’t melt evenly. Try heating it in a pot on stovetop, and it will quickly burn.

That’s why traditionally cooks have been melting chocolate using the bain marie method (French for “hot water bath”).

A metal bowl with chocolate chunks is placed on top of a cookpot filled with 1-2 inches of water (the bowl shouldn’t touch the water). As the water is brought to a boil on stovetop, the steam it releases heats up the bowl, which in turn evenly melts the chocolate pieces.

Like I said above, I’m too lazy to bother with a double boiler, so I was determined to figure out how to make my vegan aquafaba brownies without one.

That’s why I was intrigued with the double boiler-free method described in America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan For Everybody cookbook.

This method consists of pouring boiling hot water over the chocolate chips and cocoa powder, then whisking the mixture vigorously until the chocolate is melted. I found this method surprisingly easy: all of the chocolate chips usually melt within less than a minute.

Water serves two purposes in our vegan chocolate brownies: it melts the chocolate chips + adds the right amount of liquid to the batter. Traditional, non-vegan brownie batter usually gets its liquid component from eggs.

Speaking of eggs…

How to Replace Eggs in Brownies to Make Them Vegan

It’s possible to make delicious and moist brownies without eggs. The proper egg replacer has to solve two problems: bind all ingredients together + add the right amount of liquid volume.

I found that the best solution to the first problem (binding the ingredients) is using aquafaba – the “bean juice” from a can of chickpeas, cannellini or Great Northern beans. About 3 tablespoons of this chickpea brine replace one egg by volume and viscosity.

I’ve used aquafaba successfully in a number of my recipes, from vegan oatmeal raisin cookies to vegan Irish soda bread.

However, using 10-12 tablespoons of aquafaba to replace 3-4 eggs would be an overload. This is why, to solve problem #2 (add the right amount of liquid volume), I’m using plain regular water.

But I don’t just pour it in straight from the tap: I first bring it to a boil, then pour it over chocolate chips and cocoa powder. This creates a beautifully smooth dark chocolate fudge-like syrup, which is then mixed with the rest of the ingredients.

How to Replace Butter in Brownies to Make Them Vegan

Butter (or fat in general) is an important component of moist, fudgy brownies.

On one hand, it’s easy to replace when we want to make our brownies vegan – just use one of the many vegan butter alternatives or oils.

On the other hand, each brand of vegan butter and type of oil will act differently.

Full disclosure: I haven’t made today’s brownie recipe with vegan butter. However, I’ve tried a couple types of oils (canola and coconut), and here’s what I found:

• Canola oil works well because it adds lots of moistness. However, if your canola oil bottle has sat in the back of your pantry for many months, it may have gone rancid. This would ruin the flavor of your brownies (don’t ask how I know ?).

• Coconut oil in melted form is the closest alternative to butter. This is my go-to plant-based fat in most of my vegan baking recipes (the ones that aren’t oil-free).

However, coconut oil can add a hint of coconut flavor to your baked goods. To minimize that, choose refined coconut oil over unrefined – the majority of coconut flavor is removed during the refining process.

Plus, my vegan aquafaba brownies come out with a smoother texture and a glossier top surface when made with refined coconut oil.

I don’t use vegetable oil in my cooking or baking, so I can’t tell you how it would work in my aquafaba brownie recipe.

Related: How to replace eggs and butter in vegan baking: more tips and tricks.

Glass, Ceramic or Metal Baking Pan for Perfect Vegan Brownies?

Cookware type plays a big part in the texture of your brownies.

From my own experience, glass and ceramic casserole pans aren’t optimal for baking brownies. They retain too much heat, so your brownies will continue baking even after you take them out of the oven.

If you’re trying to keep your brownies moist and fudgy by slightly underbaking them, skip glass and ceramic brownie pans and go for metal ones.

A metal baking pan has thinner walls, plus it releases heat much quicker. If you use the fridge cooling method I described above, a parchment-lined metal pan is a way to go.

How to Make the Ultimate Fudgy Aquafaba Brownies

(For the list of ingredients and their amounts, please see the printable recipe card below.)

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Adjust the wire rack to the lowest position in the oven. Line a 9″ x 13″ metal casserole pan with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine half of the chocolate chips and all of the unsweetened cocoa powder.

Bring 2-3 cups of water to a boil. Right after the water boils, measure out 1 cup. Add it into the bowl with chocolate chips and cocoa powder. Whisk until the mixture looks smooth and glossy, and all chocolate chips are melted (image 1 below).

Add the rest of the wet ingredients – brown and raw sugars, melted coconut oil, aquafaba and pure vanilla extract – to the chocolate mixture. Whisk to combine (image 2).

Using a rubber spatula, fold in the dry ingredients: all purpose flour, salt, walnuts (if using) and the remaining chocolate chips (image 3).

Mix until everything is combined, and there are no flour speckles left (images 4 and 5).

Pour the brownie batter into the prepared pan (image 6). Put the pan into the preheated oven, and bake for 24-26 minutes.

About halfway through, use the rapping technique to get air bubbles out (this ensures perfect fudginess). Without taking the brownie pan out of the oven, lift it about 2 inches above the oven rack, then drop it back down. Feel free to drop the pan a few times.

Remove the brownie pan out of the oven and immediately put it into the refrigerator. Cool for 1 hour.

Take the the pan out. Gently lift the brownies out of the pan holding onto the parchment paper edges. Cut the brownies into 24 squares and serve.

How to Store Vegan Aquafaba Brownies

Store aquafaba brownies at room temperature in an airtight container up to 4-5 days, or wrap individual squares with plastic and freeze for up to 2 months.

I hope you enjoy these aquafaba brownies as much as we do in our family!

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