How do you like your brownies? With nuts or without? What about caramel? How about frosting, are you a fan or not? I’m usually for brownies with nuts and/or fruit but without frosting, while my husband insists with frosting is best. Well, this week I’m making these Raspberry Truffle Brownies which are topped with chocolate ganache. I know I said I’m not into frosting on brownies, but no one ever said anything about chocolate ganache. This changes everything! (I’m only sort of kidding.) But this is a nice compromise for us, and I’m looking forward to giving them a try.
A layer of brownie, a layer of raspberry jam, and a layer of chocolate ganache make up these delicious Raspberry Truffle Brownies. Gluten-Free and dairy-free.
The Ingredients
One thing surprised me about this recipe, and that was there are no fresh raspberries in it. I guess I had this Chocolate Raspberry Cake recipe stuck in my head. But these Raspberry Truffle Brownies get their berryliciousness from raspberry jam. I actually like this idea a lot since it’s more like real truffles.
Another thing I found interesting was that this recipe is gluten-free and uses vegan chocolate chips. I’ve tried vegan chocolate, and I can’t tell the difference, but I’ve never had gluten-free brownies. I have hope for this recipe, though, since it replaces all-purpose flour with almond flour (I’ve had good results with almond flour in the past).
This recipe also replaces dairy milk with coconut milk, but it’s not vegan since it does call for eggs. Replacing them with a vegan egg substitute would be a very easy change if you want your brownies to be vegan and not just vegetarian.
The Process
These brownies break down into three phases: making the brownies, making the ganache, and chilling until it’s set. Here’s how my time was spent:
- 16 minutes to prep the brownies
- 43 minutes to bake
- 1 minute to add the ganache
- 60 minutes total (not including time to chill)
You’ll need some parchment paper to line your baking pan, so make sure you have some on hand. I usually do, but of course, I ran out just in time for this recipe. Aluminum foil worked just as well, but I made sure to spray the inside of it with cooking spray (the opposite of the instructions for parchment).
With that problem solved, I moved onto the brownies. I was always taught to stir brownie batter by hand, but this recipe called for a hand mixer. I went with it knowing it might make the brownies very dense and chewy instead of cake-like. Hey, this recipe is already breaking some brownie rules, so let’s break a few more LOL!
Things moved along smoothly until I was ready to add the raspberry jam. Instead of dolloping it on per the instructions, I heated it in the microwave until it was syrupy and poured it over the batter. That trick always works for me.
Then it was into the oven for 33 minutes. I got the ganache prepped while the brownies baked, but they were far from done when I gave them the toothpick test. It was back into the oven for another 10 minutes to firm them up.
I used that extra time to mix up the ganache, and the brownies were ready for it this time. Then I put a lid on everything and it was into the fridge for the ganache to set up overnight. The waiting was so hard!
