Gluten free Dairy-free Soy-free Mexican Chocolate Brownies Recipe
Happy Valentine’s Day from the Book of Yum! I have a confession to make. I don’t really like brownies. I know that this is shocking, because I love (dark) chocolate and have something of a chocolate addiction that I’m trying to break. But the thing is, I like chocolate. Dark, rich, unadulterated chocolate. The bread-y cake-y chocolate thing is not really my favourite. In fact, unless it is a rich flourless chocolate cake or ganache…. I don’t even like chocolate cake. But the DH loves brownies. He loves cake-y, bread-y, sweet chocolate brownies. In all our years of being married (we will celebrate our 10th this June) I don’t think I have ever made him gluten-free brownies from scratch. I have deigned to mix up the odd batch of gluten-free brownie from a mix, but that’s it. He has never complained, but when he recently whipped up his own batch of gluten-free brownies from the Bette Crocker mix, I felt a little twinge. Why hadn’t I ever made him a good gluten-free brownie from scratch? I bake everything else from scratch, so why not that too, for a DH that has been so supportive of his gluten-free and vegetarian wife’s diet? So I resolved to remedy this error, and soon. Valentine’s Day was the perfect occasion to show my love with a little baking.
Last weekend I took Toddler Yum to Michael’s craft store to pick up supplies for making some homemade valentines for her day-care classmates. I picked up two heart cookie cutters, along with some fun stamps (including an alphabet set for stamping her name), heart ribbon, and more. I’d already bought little notepads with Valentine’s Day messages from Target, and had some scrapbook sheets at home that I planned to use as the base for the Valentines. On Sunday Toddler Yum and I got up early and spent the morning assembling valentines. We used the large heart cookie cutter as a stencil and I cut the thick scrapbook paper into large hearts. Then we taped notepads on the front of the heart and I set Toddler Yum loose with stamps, coloured pencils, and crayons to decorate the back. We stamped her name on each one, and I finished the valentine with a little heart bow on the front. Toddler Yum takes her valentines to school tomorrow and can’t wait to give her favourite teachers and friends their cards!
This little craft project left me with these wonderful heart cookie cutters. I used them this morning to make Toddler Yum some gluten-free toast hearts topped with honey-almond butter spread. Then this afternoon after I made a batch of a gluten-free, dairy-free, and soy-free Mexican chocolate brownies, I decided to use the small heart cookie cutter to cut out heart brownies. They were beautiful, and it was so much easier than rolling out cookie dough and cutting out the raw cookie shapes. Toddler Yum was so excited to see me make brownies that she opened her eyes wide and made an “oh my goodness” face with her mouth, clutching her little fists up in the air. “Two thumbs up” she said, pointing her index fingers at the sky. The DH gave these cake brownies a big thumbs up too, and so did my dairy-free mother and visiting father. “These are so much better than the mix brownies,” she said. As for me, I liked my last minute addition of cinnamon that was inspired by spicy Mexican chocolate. I almost added chili powder too, but decided that the cinnamon was wild and crazy enough for our household. The DH also appreciated the zesty cinnamon in his brownie. He wasn’t quite ready to say they were better than a box mix, but he said they were “very yummy.” Being a Libra, he doesn’t like to pick favourites.
One extra cool thing about this recipe is that it is truly 100% soy-free, even to the point of being free of soy-lecithin. Unsweetened chocolate or baking chocolate is often quite pure, and doesn’t contain emulsifiers like soy lecithin. Woo hoo! I could even serve this to my profoundly soy-sensitive friend! (Oops, guess my secret plan is out since she reads my blog!)
I hope you enjoy my gluten-free brownies recipe. It was fun and easy to make, and I managed to make a rich and decadent dessert reasonably healthy, with no refined starches and limited amounts of processed sugar. Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at the Book of Yum! Only one more day to vote for me for the Circle of Moms Top 25 Vegan and Vegetarian Mom Blogger Award!
Gluten free Recipes with Bill & Sheila
_____________________________________________________________________
If you require a high quality printout of this article, just click on the printer symbol next to ’Share and enjoy’, and we will do the rest. This site is hosted by (click on the graphic for more information)
Return from brownies to Home Page
If you want to increase your site popularity and gain thousands of visitors – check out these sites THEY ARE FREE. Spanishchef more than doubled its ‘New Visitors’ last month simply by signing up to these sites:
Follow spanishchef.net on TWITTER
