The original (gluten-containing) version of this recipe is from the Inglenook Cookbooks, printed in 1911 and 1941 by the Church of the Brethren in Illinois. The Brethren church is not a far cry from the churches of the Amish and the Mennonites, and this simple yet delicious recipe reflects similar tastes.
A Note on Gluten-Free Baking
There are many flours and binding agents available for gluten free bakers to try for this recipe. Gluten free flours often work best in combination with others, and some provide different properties than others.
- Sorghum flour provides "lift" to recipes that are fluffy. This is a good flour to combine with heavier bean flours or nut meals, and is often included in all-purpose flour mixes.
- Almond meal has a wonderful flavor and lends itself to cookies and sweets. However, because bakers use 1/2 cup of almond meal for every 1 cup of flour in a recipe, often recipes can have too much moisture when using almond meal alone. It's great in combination with all-purpose flours, and tapioca starch.
- Tapioca flour / tapioca starch is silky and light like corn starch. It can make a recipe very dense if used alone, but can also be flaky and crisp in a combined-flour pie crust.
- Buckwheat flour is a dark flour, and does not lighten with cooking, so sometimes makes the gluten-eaters tasting the GF food a little wary. It has a distinct flavor that can overpower more delicate tastes, so it's best in combination with lighter flours (like tapioca). However, it behaves the most like regular wheat flour.
- Bean flours are nutritious and earthy, but should be combined with fluffy sorghum flour to keep the end product from being too dense.
- Potato flour is much like tapioca starch, though not a sweet. It's great as a thickener, in dumplings and every day cooking tasks in addition to making a nice addition to a gluten-free flour blend.
It can be fun to experiment with the different gluten-free flours available. Freezing the remaining bits of 2 lb. bags of flour can keep them fresh indefinitely.
For the recipe below, several successful testers used "all-purpose" flour mix from Bob's Red Mill made from a mixture of fava beans, garbanzo beans, tapioca and sorghum.
Gooey Gluten-Free Brownies
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 1/8 cups vegetable oil
- 2/3 cup cocoa
- 2 cups gluten-free flour mix
- 1 teaspoon Xanthan gum (corn-derived binding agent)
- 2 teaspoons gluten-free vanilla
- 1-2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
Preheat oven: 325 degrees Fahrenheit
Yield: 24 brownies
- Prepare: grease or oil a medium sized cookie sheet
- Beat eggs until thick, and add sugar. Measure oil in a large liquid measuring cup, and mix in cocoa until well blended. Pour mixture into sugar and eggs and blend well before adding vanilla, flour and Xanthan gum. Roll in nuts. Pour batter onto the greased cookie sheet and spread into a thin layer.
- Bake for 20 minutes at 325, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Using medium sized eggs, canola oil, and the Bob's Red Mill flour, the nutrition information depicted below holds true. Approximately 196 calories per brownie, 11.6 grams of fat, (1 gram Sat. Fat), 31g Cholesterol, 10mg Sodium, 23g Carbohydrates, with 1 g Fiber and 18 g Sugar, and 2g Protein. Because of the chocolate, each brownie does include 1% RDA Calcium and Vitamin A, as well as 6% RDA of Iron.
Alicia King - Alicia King has been writing for Suite 101 since June of 2007. For over a year, she was the Featured Writer for the Suite section about ...
