Butter-Free Brownies

Ingredients

2/3 cup vegetable oil (or canola, or any other flavourless oil)
2/3 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
2/3 cup brown sugar (or less, see notes below!)
1 1/3 cups white sugar (or less, see notes below!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 160C / 325F. Grease and flour (or use cocoa powder instead of flour to dust the pan) a 9″ square baking pan.
Warm the oil in the microwave, heating on Low for 5 seconds at a time, until it’s warm but not hot. (You may need to use several repetitions of the heating to get it warm.) Add the cocoa powder, whisk until smooth and set aside for 5 minutes or so to release more cocoa flavour.
In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.
In a large bowl, combine the brown sugar, white sugar, and eggs. Use a handmixer on Medium (or a stand mixer with paddle attachment) to blend for 2-3 minutes until fluffy and lighter in colour. Beat in the vanilla extract briefly until just combined.
Pour half of the cocoa mixture into the egg mixture, and blend on Medium High for about 5 minutes, until the batter is shiny and well-mixed.
Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture, blend on Low until fully combined.
Then, pour in the second half of the cocoa mixture, and blend on Medium High for about 1 minute, until the batter is shiny and well-blended.
Pour batter into your prepared baking pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes (or up to 30 if you prefer a firmer brownie with crisp edges).

My Notes

I needed brownies 🙂 but didn’t have butter or margarine in the house so decided to try a new recipe!
I mixed this all by hand and it turned out great. Next time I’ll use my handmixer to see what a difference it’d make. I used 2 x round silicone baking mold pans (I think they’re about 10″ round x 2 1/4″ deep), and this took 30 minutes in my oven (I prefer a crispy outside edge). We sliced each baking mold into 12 triangular pieces.

More Recent Notes

I ran out of brown sugar and only used about 1/3 cup, if even. Also I cut the white sugar down to only 1 cup. They still tasted great and not overly sweet. I used my hand mixer to make the batter this time and it helped to blend everything but I wouldn’t say it’s essential. I added 1/8 teaspoon of Kashmiri chili powder to give it a subtle kick of heat.