Last time I attempted to veganise my popular Tahini Brownies, I told myself that I would take a long break. It’s been less than two weeks and I’ve already attempted it again… twice!

And at the time of writing, I believe I’ve achieved a breakthrough¹.

Just to bring you up to speed with where my last article left off: I found an excellent replacement for butter in vegan butter, but I was left struggling to find a good replacement for egg. My best attempt was to mix equal parts chickpea eggs and chia eggs (with the chia eggs partially pre-ground using a mortar and pestle), and to blend them using an immersion blender. The issue that I couldn’t resolve was that my emulsion would break whenever I’d add the egg replacements, leading to an overly grainy texture with little strength.

Chia Eggs… An Excruciating Alternative

I left the last experiment with an idea that perhaps using an immersion blender for the chia eggs is not the way forwards. This is because doing so results in a very strong gelatinous structure, which 1) is very difficult to work with, and 2) (though I haven’t proven this yet) breaks the emulsion. However, I wanted to give this another go, thinking again that the issue is that I’m not grinding the seeds enough prior to making the chia eggs.

So this time, I added a good portion of chia seeds to a food processor to see if I could grind them really fine. This completely flopped, since chia seeds are too small to be effectively broken down. In a desperate attempt, I moved to a blender, hoping that as long as the blade was covered, that the force of gravity would help me achieve my desired outcome.

Nope. No luck.

Finally I fit all the chia seeds in a small jar and used an immersion blender. Surely this was going to work.

No chance.

I think short of a spice grinder, or an immense amount of patience and popeye-grade forearms using a mortar and pestle, it is not possible to grind the chia seeds fine enough so that you don’t have any visible grains.

I decided that I’ll just go ahead with using an immersion blender, but that I’d add water bit by bit so I can thin the jelly should it be necessary.

This… was a complete disaster.

The issue is that the blades would quickly get covered with the gelatinous bits of the chia seeds, leaving the rest untouched. This was so difficult to work with that I gave up and decided to just mix everything using a spoon so I can make my chia eggs.

By slowing changing the water content, I did achieve a texture that I thought was OK to work this. This seems only slightly thicker than beaten eggs… so it was going to work right?

As soon as I added my chia eggs to my chocolate mixture, it stiffened up horribly. The addition of flour only made things worse.

Naturally… the cooked brownies did not resemble brownies at all.

I was determined NEVER to work with chia eggs ever again (though… I am willing to try one last time with pre-ground chia seeds that I can find in a shop, without using an immersion blender).

Flax Eggs… An Exciting Alternative?

Fed up with chia seeds, I decided to try flax eggs. This is the same concept as a chia egg, except that flaxseeds are used instead. You mix the seeds with water (ratio of 2:5), wait until a gel like coating forms around the seeds. The whole mixture can then (allegedly) be used as a substitute for eggs!

Unlike with chia seeds, the great thing about flaxseeds is that they are easy to find milled. I couldn’t wait to get started!

The flax eggs were not as gelatinous as I thought they would be, so instead of using a ratio of 2:5 flax meal to water, I went for something more like 3:5. This made little difference, so I just decided to continue and add them to my brownie batter.

The moment of truth…

NO OIL SEPARATION! HAVE WE ACHIEVED A BREAKTHROUGH?

I soon ran into a different (unrelated) problem. The addition of flour made my dough too dry, and this was because I was experimenting with using less fat². At this point I added a bit more fat to loosen the mixture.

Final Outcome and Next Steps

While there was no oil separation when the flax eggs were mixed in, they didn’t act as a great binder: the brownies turned out really crumbly (similar to my last attempt).

That said, I was happy with this attempt as I’m now convinced that flax/chia eggs alone are not the way forward.

Next them, I’m going to try to use aquafaba (chickpea water) as a binder and see how that turns out.

So What’s With the Dates?

In one of the above photos, you may have seen dates and wondered if they were used in the brownies. They were indeed. In addition to testing out flax eggs, I was running two other experiments:

1. Can I elevate the flavor by replacing 25% of the sugar content with date sugar?
2. Can I embed the tahini into the brownies, by coating crunchy roasted chickpeas³ with them and dispersing the same into the batter?

Date Sugar

This took a really long time, but the result was rewarding. I started by pitting my dates, and then roasting them for a couple of hours at a temperature of 100 degrees celsius. I was tasting throughout to make sure they weren’t too hard (if doing this yourself, be careful that they will harden up considerably when cooled).

Once cooled, I used a food processor to pulverize them. An absolutely painful step that I couldn’t complete due to my food processor complaining (these damn dates are so hard to work with⁴!)

I must admit that I didn’t notice the flavor of the date sugar in the brownies, but I’m fairly certain this was due to the ratios of sugar used (in the end I had 25% date sugar, 95% normal sugar). Next time, I’m going to modify the ratio to make sure that it comes through⁵. I will need to find a way to make more of it without destroying my food processor though!

Tahini Chickpeas

This idea is reads rogue, but trust me. Actually don’t, just close your eyes and imagine this: a nice brownie flavor with a crunchy texture and a nutty flavor from the roasted chickpeas and tahini every other bite? Forget the raw chickpea flavor you’re used to: these chickpeas are toasted, so the flavor will be entirely different, and not necessarily savory.

In my honest opinion, the addition of the chickpeas complemented the brownies, though I in retrospect I don’t think I’d roasted them enough (some were chewy… this wasn’t bad, but not what I was going for). What didn’t go so well was the tahini. It wouldn’t freeze properly onto the chickpeas, so in the end it was dispersed into the brownie, and was barely noticeable. If I’m going to try this next time, I’ll make sure to properly toast the chickpeas in the oven as opposed to my pan, and I would glaze them with date syrup and make sure that they have a good level of salt. I would decrease or remove the salt content from the brownie itself. The tahini needs to stay at the top layer. The contrast in flavor they provide is necessary for these brownies to work.

I have lots of ideas… so stay tuned!