Make Gluten-Free Brownie Cupcakes with Namaste Baking Mix

Brownies baked as cupcakes- from Namaste baking mix.

Check out these fudgy little gems. Chocolate chip brownies dressed up like cupcakes. These are Steve's creation. He's been making gluten-free brownies for- let me think a minute- almost nine years. (How, I ask you, is that possible? Nine years gluten-free? Yep. We'll be celebrating nine years of gluten-free living this December. Perilously close to a decade.) So he's the resident brownie expert. I bow to his expertise.

He's baked brownies from scratch. He's tried all the gluten-free mixes. He's added flavors. Coffee. Peppermint. Vanilla. He's added extra chocolate chips. Chopped walnuts. Pecans. Even raisins. He bakes brownies weekly. But lately he's got a new twist to this favorite classic treat. He plops the batter into a cupcake liner clad muffin tin. 

Steve swears this creates a better, moister brownie.

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Chocolate Quinoa Brownies- Gluten-Free and Vegan

Vegan gluten-free brownies made with quinoa flakes.

Your stubborn and chocolate obsessed gluten-free goddess has been working overtime. In between shooting photographs of the holiday lights and skaters in Santa Monica and battling the return of the flu I fought off some weeks ago (I believe in recycling, Darling, but this is a wee bit ridiculous) I have been utterly possessed. Haunted by the ghost of chocolate brownies. Vegan chocolate brownies, to be exact (because I've already served up the best egg-based gluten-free brownie I can think of, so if you haven't tried my Dark Chocolate Brownie recipe or the Chocolate Brownie made with pecan meal, Darling- Go!).

Baking failures do not sit pretty with yours truly. Especially when I am achy and voiceless and my head feels like a giant damp wad of gluten-free dough with too much xanthan gum added (you gluten-free bakers know exactly what I'm talking about). I feel like the goddess of sticky, thick and dull. And there ain't no cure. Except maybe a hot toddy. Or three.

Lucky for me I have a husband who likes to bake. A husband who says (as his brittle, grumpy hot-flashing wife is muttering expletives and scraping another gooey not-in-a-good-way gluten-free vegan brownie failure into the perky polka dotted trash can), So. 

How can we make this work?

For a split second I panic and think, He's over it. He's finally tired of living gluten-free. Living without baguettes and bagels and croissants out of love, a sense of duty, or comradeship and support. 

He's done. Finished. He's out the door, no looking back.

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Dark Chocolate Brownies- The Best Gluten-Free Recipe

A rich dark chocolate gluten-free brownie that will make you smile.

I have a confession to make (although those of you following me on Twitter might not be surprised). My confession? I baked a batch of mint chocolate brownies today. And they flopped. Totally. Why? Because I made them without eggs and the egg replacer didn't work. Who knew the dense and fudgy texture of a chocolate brownie relied so much on eggs? You'd think I'd know this by now. I've had more egg-free brownie failures than I care to count. But I was hopeful. And it wasn't just pie-in-the-sky hopeful. It was based on evidence.

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Quinoa Breakfast Brownies

Gluten-free breakfast bars - quinoa breakfast brownies.

We were treatless this week. Specifically, breakfast treatless. No Pear Polenta Muffins were hiding in the freezer. No Apple Cake with Cranberries. In fact, the only food items in the freezer were a solo bottle of organic vodka and a bag of frozen cranberries (does vodka count as food?). Which turned out to be a good thing. Because we had to bake. [Had to!] So we experimented (send smooches to Steve for initiating said experiment; if it were not for him, Dear Reader, you'd be looking at an archived recipe today).

As the breakfast treats were baking I started thinking (always dangerous). I started pondering (even more dangerous) why certain people believe they have things AFO. All Figured Out. And they'll tell you so, of course, spooning out advice in words that taste metallic. Like teeth fillings. They have all the neat little answers for you, judged and predigested, wrapped snug in tidy psychic ribbons.

If only life were that simple.

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Gluten-Free Blueberry Brownie Bites

Tasty little vegan chocolate brownie bites.

The idea for blueberry brownies came to me in the middle of shampooing my hair. I was thinking about a chocolate bar I'd seen the day before (what, you don't think about chocolate in the shower?). It was a slim dark chocolate confection with dried blueberries. I'm a fruit and chocolate combo fan, you see. I love berries and chocolate. Orange and chocolate. Pineapple and chocolate. Actually, is there anything that doesn't taste better with some chocolate on it?

Such are my ponderous meanderings.

I'm still waiting for my Babycakes cookbook to arrive (I pre-ordered it from Amazon) along with pastry bags and icing tips. Ever since my unexpected success developing my first gluten-free and vegan Orange Creme Cupcakes I've been dreaming up cupcake flavors and imagining sweet little gems galore. Although I was less than thrilled to learn that Babycakes bakery uses bean flours (yuck), soy milk powder (um, why?) and spelt (spelt is not gluten-free) in their recipes, I'm still stoked to get the book, hoping it will at least inspire my own gluten-free vegan beauties.

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Gluten-Free Chocolate Brownies Recipe with Pecan Meal

A rich, gluten-free chocolate brownie with pecan flour.

Everyone needs a rich decadent brownie treat now and then. Especially if you wake up to snow and ice and no electricity. Which means of course, no heat. No hot water. No shower. Which translates into one very bad hair day. And one prickly, cranky goddess. I'm serious.

What does Mother Nature think this is, December?

Oh. Wait.

I've been deep in denial, I admit it. I've been distracting myself tweaking blog color schemes and rustling up pumpkin waffles and cozy soups and watching old Humphrey Bogart movies and downloading music pretending Autumn Shade is forever. But winter, I hate to tell you, is only twelve days away, inching closer every shivering second. It's a good thing we have a kiva fireplace and a stack of pinon outside the door. With nothing to do, I bundled up and settled in to read (long overdue) Temple Grandin's amazing book Animals In Translation.

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Cappuccino Brownies

Cinnamon, coffee and chocolate make these brownies taste like a cappuccino.

Making a gluten-free brownie without eggs at high altitude is a nightmare. I kid you not. You try it. The damn batter never cooks- it sizzles and oozes and just when you can take it no longer, Dear Reader, you yank the unctuous mud out of the oven out of sheer boredom and disgust (they've been baking for what, three days now?) and you set them on the cooling rack only to watch them harden into what can only be described, I am sorry to tell you, as a slab of cement.

Brown cement.

Not even the coyotes would touch them.

And yes, I've tried the high altitude tricks. And no, I can't use silken tofu or flaxseed gel or mayonnaise (due to suspected food allergies). What I can do is persevere (here is where neurodiverse perseveration comes in handy). This time, it worked. Maybe it was the vegan Spectrum Organic Shortening. Or maybe it was the gluten-free vanilla powder. Who knows? All I know is this attempt (number, what? Fifteen, maybe?) is finally edible.

Not to mention, not half bad delicious.

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Chocolate Chip Cookies and Vanilla Brownies

Vanilla Brownie? Or Cookie Bar? You decide.

First- thank you all for your kind and compassionate wishes for a speedy recovery from emergency hip surgery. Such fabulous readers you are- every one of you. As our Italian friend, Sandra, once said to us- in her dead gorgeous Tuscan accent-  

I love you too much!

I feel human again. Yesterday (day nine post-surgery) this sticky, prickly goddess got to sit inside the shower (they make these nifty portable shower seats now) and- Aphrodite-blessed relief!- indulge in twenty sexy minutes of hot steamy bliss. Hawaiian shampoo. Rainbath lather. Leg shaving!

One lesson a broken hip teaches you? It's the little things in life that count. The simple luxury of taking a shower shoots to gold star status- the genuine, beyond spectacular highlight of the day. Pulling on a soft clean shirt? Heaven. Sitting upright, freshly shampooed and moisturized with Eternity lotion? Divine. Twirling pasta in olive oil and garlic- in bed- next to your husband? It doesn't get any better than this.

And then there are chocolate chip cookies (that are egg-free and dairy-free- earning them treasured vegan status). They also happen to be gluten-free, wheat-free, bean-free, soy-free and nut-free. Perfect for all those cute-as-a-button multi-allergic tykes out there. Not to mention, gluten-free vegan goddesses.

Last night Steve helped me make these as cookie bars, in the style of my old tried and true favorite chocolate chip cookie bar recipe- and, Babycakes, they were a damn good match. I named them Vanilla Brownies. My trick was a small cheat. A dab of butter flavor extract. I don't usually turn to artificial flavors (in fact, this is a first for me), but when you are allergic to most natural flavors and buckets of other foods and your taste buds crave a buttery sweet treat, this decidedly un-foodie goddess figures--- Why the Hades not? But if it horrifies you to use it, Darling Reader- and just the very thought of it keeps you up at night worrying about the integrity of the cookie universe- leave it out. It's one quarter of a teaspoon. Sub it with vanilla. Do your thing. 

It's all good.

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