No-bake sesame chocolate squares
September 30, 2021 at 9:48 pm (B plus (3.5 stars, like a lot), Brownies and bars, Granola & energy bars, Website / blog)
In one of my parenting groups someone was raving about these no-bake chocolate sesame squares from the book Sugarproof. I love sesame in desserts, and I love chocolate, so I had to try them.
The recipe is pretty simple, you just dump 8 oz of pitted dates in a food processor along with 3/4 cup sesame seeds, 1/3 cup tahini, 1/2 cup rolled oats, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 2 Tbs. water, and a pinch of salt. You pulse it all until the mixture starts to pull away from the sides of the food processor and collect towards the center. My mixture didn’t pull away, even after quite a while. I had to add quite a bit more water to get it to congeal into a solid mass. But other than that the bars came out well. They remind me a lot of Lara bars, just sesame flavored. I’ve tried to make “halvah balls” before without so much success. These had a better texture, if less halvah-esque.
I gave one bar to Alma in her school snack and she told me it was very good. I’m going to freeze the rest and bring them out occasionally when we are in the mood for something sweet and chocolatey.
Also, one more note. A full 8oz of dates is a lot! I guess if you don’t use refined sweeteners you need a lot of dates to make it taste sweet like a dessert.
Update Jan 18, 2022: We finally finished the whole batch of frozen bars. Although Alma said they were very good on her first try, she never liked them after that. Oh well. I still really like them, especially when they have been sitting out for a while. Cold from the freezer they aren’t as gooey and chocolatey. I will definitely make these again for myself!
Gooey bittersweet brownies
January 7, 2016 at 9:14 pm (Alice Medrich, Brownies and bars, B_minus (2.5 stars), Uncategorized)
I already have an Alice Medrich cocoa-only brownie recipe I like a lot, but this one was featured on the Food52 Genius Recipes page, and has been getting rave reviews for its ultra gooey, ultra chocolatey qualities. Read the rest of this entry »
Vegan flourless brownies
October 25, 2012 at 8:27 pm (Brownies and bars, Dessert, My brain, unrated)
I’ve had about a third of a big block of date paste from the Turkish grocery store sitting in my pantry for a while ago. I bought it to make Lara bars, but only attempted it once. I decided to try to use the rest of the date paste to make some sort of raw fruit and nut bars, but I ended up adding lots of cocoa powder so they ended up a bit more like raw brownies. Read the rest of this entry »
Decadent brownies
June 20, 2010 at 10:32 pm (A (4 stars, love, favorite), Alice Medrich, Alma's faves, Brownies and bars, Cook's Illustrated, Derek's faves, Dessert, Necessarily nonvegan, Yearly menu plan)
This recipe happens to come from Alice Medrich’s low fat cookbook (Chocolate and the Art of Lowfat Desserts). But to my taste it makes the perfect brownie: intense chocolate flavor and a little gooey in the middle but with a perfectly textured brownie top. Read the rest of this entry »
Chocolate Chip Brownies, vegan
April 24, 2007 at 2:31 pm (A (4 stars, love, favorite), Brownies and bars, Dessert, Peter Berley, Quick weeknight recipe, Soymilk)
My mom came to visit and we made these vegan brownies together. I asked her to write up the blog entry for me:
They came out great with a crispy outside and chewy inside. The recipe originated from Peter Berley’s Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, but we made some adjustments before even starting.. We halved the recipe since we were making a new recipe and didn’t want to have too much of something we didn’t like. We left out the walnuts because we didn’t have any at 10pm and didn’t want to go to the store. And we used white flour instead of half whole wheat pastry flour again because we didn’t have any available. Here is the recipe.
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 1/4 cup soymilk
- 1.5 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup unbleached white flour
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 6 Tablespoons sugar
- 1/4 cup Sucanat
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup semi/sweet chocolate chips
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil an 8 inch square pan.
- Put the oil, maple syrup , soy milk and vanilla in a medium bowl and whisk to combine.
- In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa, sugar, sucanat , baking powder and salt.
- Fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture with a rubber spatula. Don’t overmix.
- Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Put the batter in the pan and spread it out evenly. Bake for 35 minutes.
- Do not overbake.
- Cool before cutting.
The captious vegetarian 