Vegan Mix Brownies!

When I was 21 I spent a year living in Boston. Rather than finishing up my last year at Tufts, I was working at a gourmet food shop and waiting to hear about my app to transfer into an agricultural program at Cornell. There were 7 of us in that house and we had a sort of veggie coop set up. Every week two people were on shopping duty, and we bought our food collectively and informally cooked for each other here and there. It worked pretty well. In fact, it was one of the best living situations I've ever stumbled into.

One of our small glitches was that two us were vegan while the rest were not. This meant that often things had to become vegan that ordinarily wouldn't have been. To be fair. Communal food.

For example: mix brownies.

I think I mentioned earlier that I freakin love brownies from a mix. Probably because my mother never made them when I was a kid. Everything we baked was from scratch, so mix brownies were pure magical sweetness.

And surprisingly, in and of themselves, often vegan.

Of course, they have a lot of other nonsense in them, but there are worse things. At least no corn syrup, right?

Here's what you do:

Instead of the

1 egg (for chewy ones, the way I like)
1/3 c. water and
1/3 c. veggie oil

that the kind I usually get – Duncan Hinse Chocolate Lover's – calls for, I use

3 tbsp. applesauce
1/3 c. water and
1/3 c. silken tofu (blended smooth).

Now you've cut the oil and the egg, but certainly not the sugar.