A: Welcome to VOV24/7’s Food Delight. We have lots of cooking tips and recipes for you.

B: Hey, you guys, are you ready for this week’s recipe?

A: Today, we have a hard-to-resist recipe for brownies from Italy.

B: Italy is famous for elegant desserts like Tiramisu, Panna Cota, and Cassata Siciliana.

A: That’s right, but today we’ll talk about the Brownie, an appealing cakey dessert.

B: It’s one of my favorites. The chocolaty and gooey brownie attracts everyone at first sight or at first bite. The brownie is a popular dessert and a variety of brownies can be found on many restaurant menus.

A: The ingredients for a brownie are simple and probably already in your fridge. The basic ingredients are butter, eggs, sugar, chocolate, vanilla extract, and flour.

B: That’s for a regular brownie. On today’s show, we have Nguyen Cam Ngoc from Beemart, the purveyor of baking accessories and cake decorating. Ngoc specializes in baking, and is a dedicated vegan. Ngoc will tell us how to make a vegan brownie.

(Photo: foodnetwork.com)

A: Take a look. I can’t distinguish between the normal brownie and the vegan brownie. Let’s have a bite. Both are smooth, and chocolatey. Vegans don’t eat eggs or butter. So what ingredients are used for a vegan brownie? Ngoc will tell us: “The traditional brownie is made from butter, milk, and eggs. For a vegan brownie, I use chia seeds in place of eggs. Those who want to have milk can use almond milk or soya milk. I prefer almond milk because it’s fattier. I use coconut oil instead of butter”.

B: Here are the ingredients for vegan brownies:

 250 grams of flour, 70 grams of cocoa, 50 grams of dark chocolate, 200 ml of coconut oil, vanilla extract, salt, honey or stevia sugar.

A: I want to tell you more about stevia sugar. Stevia is a natural sweetener derived from the leaves of Stevia rebaudiana, an herb in the chrysanthemum family. Unlike normal sugar, Stevia is extremely low in calories. It’s used for vegans or those on a diet.

B: The biggest challenge with vegan brownies is binding them together and adding moisture without the use of eggs. Ngoc will show us how to make vegan brownies: “The 3 dry ingredients - flour, sugar and cocoa powder - are mixed together, then set aside.  The chia seeds are soaked in water. Whisk the coconut oil and chia seeds together. Use a blender to mix them well. Pour the wet into the dry, and stir to combine. The chocolate is melted, added to the mixture and poured into a prepared pan. Preheat the oven for 10 minutes. Bake the cake for 15 to 20 minutes at 170 or 180 DC. When the cake is done, put it on a rack to cool”.

A: Brownies are more appealing with a chocolate topping.  Ngoc said: “Decorating the brownie is simple with icing sugar or melted chocolate. For chocolate topping, add 10 ml of coconut oil to 50 grams of chocolate and melt them together. You can add some stevia sugar or honey to enhance the flavor. After the mixture is cool, pour it onto the brownie. Then, refrigerate. It will start to firm up after a few hours and is nice and cut-able by the next day”.

(Photo: veganbaking.net)

B: Vegan brownies involve only a few steps, but they might take you some time.

A: I think making any cake is a time-consuming process. Do it on the weekend when you have more free time. Enjoy your brownies. And tune into our show for more recipes. Good bye.