Cola Dark Chocolate Vegan Brownies

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There is always one basic-ish recipe that has always alluded me. For a while, it was the vegan chocolate chip cookie, then it was the perfect vegan pancakes, but recently, I’ve been trying to conquer the perfect, fudgy dark chocolate vegan brownie. I’ve tried a few renditions of vegan brownies, some coming out too cakey, other always coming out too dry, and I knew something was missing. I do already have a deep dish version that I love, but it didn’t always translate over into a pan of brownies like I wanted them to. I really wanted a fudgy, vegan brownie, that was easy to pull together and came with all the crunchy edges and soft middles that are the marker of a perfect brownie. Lo and behold, I only had to look to my fellow baking blogger Oh, Ladycakes to find the answer. Her vegan brownie recipe won me over each and every time, using ingredients I always have in stock in my cabinets and making for a pretty quick bowl to slicing and eating time.

So I figured, let’s tinker with it a bit! I kept the base of Ashlae’s recipe just about the same, but swapped out coconut oil for olive oil and splashed in a cup of Zevia cola for a little fizzy action in the batter. While these don’t necessarily taste like cola, I think the cola flavors combined with the dark chocolate and cocoa is a perfect combination. It’s a like a good back up singer, you can hear them and notice when they aren’t there, but it’s not the full-blown star of the show. Chocolate is obviously the standout here, so make sure you are using a good chocolate (lol, channeling my inner Ina) since you want the best bites of chocolate filled brownies possible. I also would normally bake brownies in an 8×8 or 9×9 square pan, but often, they came out too think or overbaked for my taste. For these, I instead baked them in a loaf pan. This makes a few less brownies in the end, but they also end up being thick, chewy, and perfectly chocolatey!

Lesson learned here, sometimes you don’t need to mess with a good thing! I was going to try to create my own from-scratch dark chocolate vegan brownie recipe, but this one was already perfect. I’ll probably still tinker with the base because I can’t leave well enough alone, but for now, these are going to be my go-to brownie recipe. Also, I usually take my recipes to work or send them to work with my husband, but he kept them close to home, eating a brownie almost every day before work or for a sweet treat after dinner. I’ll consider it a baking win!

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