Eggless & Gluten free fudgy crinkle top Millet Brownies

Who doesn’t love a fudgy brownie with a perfect crinkle top? And if I told you, you can make one without any refined sugar or refined flour or eggs, with the goodness of millets, wouldn’t you love it even more?!

So here I am with an easy eggless brownie recipe that is gluten-free and can be easily made vegan!

First things first, what are millets?

If you are new to millets, these are a group of small seeded plants belonging to grass family. All the varieties are rich in nutrients, naturally gluten free and often require very less water for cultivation. So these are good for our body as well as for the environment. The two varieties of millets I have used here are:

• Finger millet or Ragi/Naachni/Madua
• Sorghum or Jowar

This recipe doesn’t use any other flour, making it a gluten free brownie recipe. Use fresh millet flour as millet flour tends to go bad in a few months. If you do not use millet flour often, you can keep them in the refrigerator and they will stay fresher for longer.

Substitute for Refined sugar

This recipe uses two kinds of unrefined sugars, Jaggery and raw sugar. Both these sweeteners are high in calories but they are unrefined and hence they preserve the natural nutrients from sugar cane and have beautiful distinct flavours of their own!

Chocolate

Like most brownie recipes, this recipe also uses two types of cacao elements to bring in that intense chocolate flavour. I have used raw cacao powder for making this recipe but a regular good quality cocoa powder or a dutch processed cocoa powder will work perfectly well too.

Raw cacao powder is made from raw cacao beans and so contain more nutrients than a regular cocoa powder that is fermented, roasted and then processed further to make cocoa powder.

Dark Curvature chocolate anywhere between 55-75% cocoa mass will give you the best results. Please do not use compound chocolate for this recipe as compound chocolate is made from cocoa powder and vegetable fats and doesn’t contain cocoa butter.

How to get that perfect crinkle top?

Sugars

To get a perfect crinkled top, the sugar content in the recipe has to be high and all the sugar has to be completely dissolved. Making a syrup with the sugars ensures that the sugar in the batter is dissolved properly.

Adding chocolate and ghee directly to the hot syrup is just to simplify the process and reduce one step of melting chocolate separately.

Fat

When I was developing this recipe, with all the test batches I made with different quantities for fat, I noticed that with higher amount of fat, I got a shinier crust on the brownies. If you want to reduce the amount of fat in the recipe, you can go as low as 30g ghee and if you want to increase the amount of fat, you can go as high as 70g. (This is the range I have tested and it will still give you that crinkle top).

I have used ghee in this recipe but you can substitute it for butter or brown butter in the same quantity. You can also use a neutral flavoured vegetable oil or vegan butter to make this recipe completely vegan!

Nuts and Salt

Now you know that reducing the amount of sugars in this recipe will not give you that classic crinkle top. So to balance out the sweetness in this recipe, I have used Pecans. You can sure substitute them with walnuts. But please add some nuts. It provides a nice crunch too and contrasts quite well with the gooey texture.

Salt helps enhance the flavour of all things sweet. Here it also balances the sweetness. So please do not skip it. If you do not have flaked sea salt, you can use small crystals of salt too.

Now that you know how and what in this recipe works, here are the measurements and detailed recipe!

Eggless & Glutenfree Crinkle top Millet Brownies

Serves: 9 pieces Prep Time: 20 mins Cooking Time: 30 mins 30 mins

Rating: 4.0/5

( 3 voted )

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Ingredients

2/3 cup (80 g) - Jaggery

2/3 cup (80 g) - Raw Sugar

1/2 cup (125 ml) - Water

150g - Dark Curvature Chocolate (55-75%)

1/4 cup (50 g) - Ghee

1 tsp  (5 ml)- Vanilla Extract

1/4 cup (30 g) - Cocoa Powder

1 cup (120 g) - Ragi/Finger millet flour

1/3 cup (40 g) - Jowar/Sorghum flour

1/2 tsp - Baking Powder

1/4 tsp - Baking Soda

1/4 tsp - Salt

50 g - Chopped Pecans/Walnuts

20 g - Whole Pecans/Walnuts

Flaked Sea Salt

Instructions

1. We will begin by sifting our dry ingredients. Place a sieve over a large bowl and add in the millet flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Sift these in and set it aside.
2. In a pan take jagger, raw sugar and water and place it over low heat. Stir until all the sugars have completely dissolved and switch off the heat.
3. Add the chocolate, ghee and vanilla extract. If you are using a chocolate bar, chop/break it into small pieces first.
4. In 2-4 minutes when the ghee has completely melted, give everything a good mix so all the chocolate is evenly combined in the syrup and an even mixture forms.
5. Pour this mixture into the bowl with the sifted dry ingredients and add in the lightly toasted and chopped pecans.
6. Using a spatula, gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet and form a uniform batter.
7. Pout this batter into a parchment lined 9x9 baking pan and bake these brownies at 170 C for around 20-30 minutes depending on your oven. If you prefer your brownies gooey, it will take around 20-25 mins. For a more cake like texture, bake it for 30-35 minutes.
8. Take the brownies out of the oven and let them cool completely to room temperature before taking them out of the pan.
9. Slice the brownies into 9 or 16 equal squares and enjoy!

Notes

1. Do not reduce the amount of sweetener in this recipe. This is essential to get that perfect crinkle top.
2. Make sure that the raw sugar and jaggery dissolves completely in the syrup.
3. Use good quality dark chocolate with 55-75% cocoa mass. Compound chocolate will not give you the same results.
4. Let the chocolate melt completely in the hot syrup. Chop the chocolate finely if using a chocolate bar.
5. Work quickly and pour the warm sugar chocolate mixture when it is still warm. 
6. The batter should be slightly warm when you pour it into the baking tray.
7. If using a 8x8 square pan, the brownies will take slightly longer to bake. Increase the baking time by 5-10 minutes.
8. You can store the leftover brownies in an air tight container at room temperature (upto 30 C) for a couple of days or in the refrigerator for a week or two. These brownies do not have any wet dairy or eggs so these last slightly longer at room temperature. (My brownies did not go bad for a week at room temperature, weather around 30 C with low humidity).

Did You Make This Recipe?

Have you made this recipe? Tag me on Instagram at @VanillaTrails and use the hashtag #MadeWithVanillaTrails.