How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…with vanilla coconut ice cream, with peanut butter, with orange marmalade (it’s really good, trust me – live a little – give it a go). Ahhhh brownie, you complete me…sorry honey. How do you like your brownies?

Believe it or not, I’m not a big chocolate dessert fan. But, I, obviously, love brownies. And, much to my joy, after counting the votes, the brownie recipe from My Plant-Based Family won the vote for the test kitchen.

I was very eager to try these, and not just because of my love of brownies, but because of the sweet potato. I’ve never baked with sweet potato. Have any of you? If yes, please share your recipes.

Ingredients:

• Unsweetened applesauce
• Cocoa powder
• Brown rice flour
• Sorghum flour
• Sea salt
• Baking powder
• Turbinado sugar
• Pureed cooked sweet potatoes
• Vanilla
• Plant milk
• Vegan Chocolate chips

The directions were straight forward and very easy-to-follow. However, I should have gone with my instinct to use the food processor to puree the sweet potatoes. But, I proceeded with the fork and my instinct was confirmed. I’m not a talented fork masher. You might be able to see this in the pictures. Please realize the bits of sweet potato are due to the baker and not the recipe. Hopefully, with practice, I will become more adept at mashing with a fork.

On to the results. The Brownie recipe from My Plant-Based Family was awarded an A.

A for availability of the ingredients. I was only missing the sorghum flour from my pantry and this was easily found at the grocery. I used Bob’s Red Mill sorghum and brown rice flour. I checked two local grocery stores for the Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips and found those too. And the rest of the ingredients are readily available in practically any grocery store.

B for cost. The only item that prevented this category from being an A were the chocolate chips. These are a bit pricey at almost $5 a bag.

A for direction. As previously stated the recipe was very easy-to-follow and it was super simple to double the recipe, and that’s exactly what I did.

A for taste. And once again, I took myself out of the testing because of my sheer biased love for brownies. I had nine official taste testers and about 12 unofficial taste testers. I knew I would finish the batch on my own, so I offered the remaining brownies to my students minus two for me…of course.

And on to the comments: “Smells great! I’m not a vegan so I was really surprised at how awesome the brownies tasted!!” Many folks found the recipe “very moist” however, one person thought the recipe “could use more moisture”. A few of the taste testers, one in particular, thought, “it could be sweeter”. When it came to texture most liked the denseness the recipe offered but one mentioned it to be, “a little mushy”. And finally, one last comment, “This is great for kids – disguising the sweet potato in a brownie is genius.”

Suggestions:

One taste tester suggested using a different binder like mashed bananas or perhaps a different flour. Another tester suggested more applesauce to add moisture.

And, on the side, I thought the brownies were awesome. Great taste, texture and sweetness. I foresee a future where I’ll be sharpening my sweet potato mashing skills.

Until next time when we will be testing a savory dish. Please send in your suggestions for testing.

Please make sure that all of your ingredients are both vegan and gluten free. Just because ingredients are listed and pictured does not insinuate that they are either vegan or gluten free. Please make sure you choose the appropriate ingredients for your audience of tasters. Kroger has a wonderful list on their website (71 pages) of all the gluten free items in their stores.