Vegan Blondies, almost!

I wasn't ever a fan of chocolates till I first tasted some sinfully good Lindt Dark chocolates given by my brother-in-law. Prior to this, I hardly purchased chocolates on my own. Of course, a few indulgences in the gifted ones were always sought after. Ever since I tasted the bittersweet dark chocolate, I have been a fan of them. And what I really like about them is the bitter-sweetness, apt for my taste. The real boost for loving these dark beauties came when I started using them in bakes like that of brownies, cakes and their kinds.

Even as I have loved these, I have not been able to adapt well to the tastes of white chocolates. For the uninitiated, white chocolates are not supposedly chocolates, but are of made up of cocoa butter and milk solids with added sugar. White chocolates lack the cocoa flavor, emitting mostly flavors derived from milk solids and cocoa butter. To me, it tastes almost like thick emulsion of milk powder mixed in butter. I love milk, but this kind of chocolate is not my taste.

One of our trips to Brigades saw us picking a 500g bar of white chocolate from Nilgiris, just to make the sibling of these Brownies, called Blondies. My DH has not shown particular inclination in picking any baking ingredients as that bit of shopping is usually left to me. I am not sure what triggered him that day as he asked me to pick a bar of these. It probably reminded him of the fabulous Brownies that he is fond of. Or probably remembered me referring to Blondies in the past while serving him Brownies. Back home, I had to work on these.

I posted this on my blog a few days ago, but withdrew it immediately and it went back to drafts. It was time for Yogurt Panna Cotta then, but I am posting it again today.

Vegan Blondies

INGREDIENTS

200 gm white chocolate
100 gm unsalted butter (use non dairy margarine for vegan option)
100 gm silken tofu
50 gm sugar
50 gm all purpose flour
A pinch of salt
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp baking soda

DIRECTIONS

Melt chocolate with butter in a double boiler over barely simmering water until the white chocolate melts and dissolves with butter. Stir frequently till it is smooth. Set aside for it to cool a little.

Pulse the silken tofu in a food processor, till it's extremely fine and smooth. Add in the rest of the ingredients, like the white chocolate, butter, vanilla extract, the flour and pulse again till the batter is fine and smooth. White chocolate that I had at hand were already sweet, so care for the sugar you use if you are using sweetened white chocolates.

Finally add in the baking soda. I was skeptical if the blondies would get any rise with tofu, so I have used baking soda here. Feel free to skip if you like. Bake for about 30 to 40 minutes at 350 degrees. Test with a toothpick. The top would look like a cake, center may be moist. That's how we want it to be. Do not over-bake the brownies. Remove and cool completely. Cut into squares or rectangles. Serve warm as is.

The blondies turned out great! I admit it's not 100% vegan as I was unable to get vegan white chocolate. Using silken tofu often is not the best feasible option as I still haven't been able to procure local ingredient and I rely on the imported ones. My guess for a good alternative to tofu would be homemade cottage cheese. These warm white chocolate brownies or blondies were surely fudgy and good as our evening snack.