Brownies lend themselves well to adaptation to a gluten-free diet, because at their best, they are a mass of chocolate and butter, barely held together by as little flour as you can get away with. What that flour is hardly seems to matter too much, either – indeed, one of the finest examples I’ve ever eaten was shared, rather grudgingly, it must be admitted, with a coeliac friend. But, with my usual plain white out of the running here, what’s the best substitute for a deliciously squidgy, delightfully rich result?
The flour
Let’s cut to the chase: there are as many ways to make a brownie as there are ways to cover yourself in chocolate in the process, but the real difference between the gluten-free recipes are in what they replace the wheat with. Many recipes simply use gluten-free plain flour, which tends to be a mixture of different flours – the one I find contains rice, potato and maize starch. I try it in the whisky and fig brownies in the Konditor & Cook book and, though they’re deliciously rich and boozy, the batter itself still has that slight graininess that I associate with gluten-free baking. Henrietta Inman’s chocolate, peanut and teff brownies from The Natural Baker are better texturally – teff, an ancient grain native to Ethiopia and Eritrea, has a naturally faintly gritty texture, but also a high protein content, which gives her brownies a satisfyingly robust structure, dissolving into glorious goo in the centre. Harry Eastwood, meanwhile, gets around the problem by using a mere two tablespoons of rice flour in her enticingly named forbidden chocolate brownies in Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache, which means it’s barely noticeable among the ground hazelnuts and pureed beetroot.
Easier to source, however and somewhat silkier, is the cornflour used by chef Matt Christmas at Chez Bruce in south-west London, adapted, he tells me, at some distant point in the past from an old Claire Clark recipe. You can just about detect it if you really concentrate, but I reckon these could pass as “normal” brownies with all but the most dedicated of nitpickers.
The other option, of course, is to use ground nuts instead, as in so many other flourless cakes, an approach favoured by Emma Goss-Custard’s Honeybuns cookbook, Nigella Lawson and baker Paul O’Brien, who kindly sends me the recipe they use at the Sunflour Bakery on London’s Caledonian Road. I could rival a squirrel in my passion for ground almonds, in particular, but here I think they turn the brownies into something else – something delicious, yes, but not essentially brownie-like. For me, a brownie ought to be all about the chocolate; nuts can add texture, but they shouldn’t dilute its flavour.
Some recipes also use raising agents, but I don’t think they’re really necessary – fluffiness is not the name of the game here.
The dairy
Butter is a vital part of this dish – there’s no getting away from it – along with eggs to lend it structure. Konditor & Cook use whites to give the mixture “more stability”, but as I don’t find this a problem in the other recipes, I’d prefer to keep things straightforward and stick in the lovely, tasty yolks, too. After all, there’s no such thing as too rich when it comes to brownies.
Whipping the eggs up with the sugar, as Eastwood and Christmas recommend, helps not only to dissolve the latter, which will give the finished bake a smoother texture, but also adds air, making an inevitably (and happily) dense cake very slightly less dense, which means, in turn, that you can eat slightly more of it. Win-win.
The chocolate and sugar
Use as much of the first as possible – though, if you want to make life really easy for yourself, may I point you in the direction of Sunflour’s recipe, which folds four eggs and 150g ground almonds into 500g chocolate spread. It really is that simple, and it’s very, very good.
Sugar-wise, caster will work just fine, but I like Eastwood’s toffeeish light muscovado here; the darker version in Christmas’ recipe is a bit intense for an afternoon treat, though I’m sure it works wonderfully on the dessert menu at his restaurant.
The flavourings
This is entirely up to you, of course, but let me give you some ideas. First point, nuts provide textural interest, further increasing the moreishness factor. (If this makes you anxious, I’d suggest avoiding brownies altogether.) If you don’t like nuts, you might want to consider deploying Konditor & Cook’s whisky-soaked figs for the same purpose, or perhaps something else crunchy, such as seeds, say, or broken biscuits, or cinder toffee. If you really like nuts, however, pour half a jar of peanut butter on top, too; that’s Inman’s idea and it’s great. Eastwood stirs through pureed beetroot, which sounds worthy, but doesn’t taste it in the least; instead, it supplies a slightly perfumed sweetness that lifts the chocolate beautifully, as well as giving a spuriously healthy feeling to the whole affair, which, again, encourages further consumption.
Christmas adds a pinch of ground coffee, which works incredibly well, giving his brownies a subtle, but undeniably intriguing dark and bitter edge. If you don’t have it, or don’t like it, feel free to leave it out, or substitute a teaspoon of vanilla essence or a sweet spice of your choice (or, indeed, a non-sweet spice – they’re your brownies, after all). The only thing I really must insist you include is salt: a good pinch will help balance out the sweetness and richness, so you can eat, well, you know the drill. I’m duty-bound, however, to recommend you consume in moderation.
Perfect gluten-free chocolate brownies
Prep 15 min
Cook 35 min
Makes 1 tray (about 20 squares or 40 triangles)
250g butter, diced
300g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
3 eggs
275g soft light brown sugar
100g walnuts, or other nuts (optional)
75g cornflour
1 tsp fine salt
1 tsp ground coffee (optional)
Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan)/350F/gas 4, and grease and line a tin about 24cm square with baking paper. Melt the butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally to help them along. Lift off and set aside.
Meanwhile, whisk the eggs with the sugar until they’ve about tripled in size – electric beaters will help here, if you have them. Roughly chop the nuts, if using.
Fold the cornflour, salt and coffee, if using, into the egg mix, then stir in the nuts, if using.
Pour into the tin and bake for about 35 minutes, or until set on top but still slightly wobbly in the middle. While the brownies are baking, quarter-fill a sink with cold water, and put the tin straight in there the moment it comes out of the oven. Leave to cool before cutting into squares or triangles and enjoying with a cuppa.
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