Fudgy Vegan Brownies — Something Sweet for the Kitchen That Holds Everything

The world has become smaller this year. Mamma is gone. The first Sven is gone. The kitchen holds them both — Mamma in the bread pans on the shelf, the wooden spoon worn smooth where her hand held it for sixty years, the recipe cards in her tiny European hand; the first Sven in the worn spot on the floor under the dining room table where he slept for fourteen years, in the chewed corner of the rocking chair he could never resist, in the absence of barking when the doorbell rings. I am sixty-something and orphaned in the new way: the parental generation gone, the adult generation in charge. Sophie called. Her voice was thick. She said she was sorry about Mamma. She said she had been trying to type a text for an hour and could not. She called instead. We did not say much. We did not need to. Sophie has been to enough funerals at this point to know that the calls after are not for words but for the audible presence of a person on the other end of the line. The presence is the love. The presence is the bridge. The new Sven (Sven the Second) is six months old now. He chewed through my favorite shoe. He jumped on the kitchen counter. He is the worst-behaved dog Duluth has ever produced. I love him completely. He has the energy of a small storm. He is the right thing for the kitchen right now. The first Sven was a steady ocean. This Sven is a storm. Both are necessary in their seasons. I cooked Wild rice soup (always) this week. The Thursday constant. The soup does not respect the calendar. The Damiano Center on Thursday. The pot was bigger than usual — fifty-five gallons. The crowd was bigger than usual. The need does not respect the calendar. There is no holiday from hunger. There is no week off from the soup. We make the soup. They come for the soup. The pattern is reliable. I thought about my own mother today. The full thought of her — Mamma at thirty in the kitchen on Fifth Street, Mamma at sixty in the kitchen on Fifth Street, Mamma at ninety in the kitchen on Fifth Street, Mamma in hospice in 2024 with her eyes closed and her hand in mine. The full arc of a person fits in a single thought, sometimes, if you let it. The thought is the inheritance. The thought is the visit. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. The Damiano Center has changed slowly over the years. The director has changed three times in the period I have volunteered. The volunteer roster has rotated, with new faces every year. The pot — the actual physical fifty-gallon stock pot — has been replaced once. The recipe has not changed. The recipe is a constant. The constancy is the gift the recipe gives to a place where so much else is in flux. It is enough.

The soup was already spoken for that Thursday — fifty-five gallons of it, steady as ever. But I came home to a kitchen that needed something more from me, something small and sweet and made with my own hands just for the sake of making it. These fudgy vegan brownies are what I landed on: no eggs, no butter, nothing that required a trip to a store I didn’t have the heart to make, and yet they came out of the oven tasting like intention. I brought a tray to the Damiano Center the following week. The recipe is Mamma’s kind of simple — honest, reliable, and better than it has any right to be.

Fudgy Vegan Brownies

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 16

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup dairy-free chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat. Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease an 8x8-inch baking pan or line it with parchment paper.
2. Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt until evenly combined.
3. Add wet ingredients. Pour in the melted coconut oil, applesauce, and vanilla extract. Stir until a thick, smooth batter forms — do not overmix.
4. Fold in chocolate chips. Gently fold in the dairy-free chocolate chips, reserving a small handful to scatter over the top.
5. Transfer and top. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Scatter the reserved chocolate chips over the surface.
6. Bake. Bake for 28 to 32 minutes, until the center is just set and a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs (not wet batter).
7. Cool and cut. Allow the brownies to cool in the pan for at least 15 minutes before slicing into 16 squares. They firm up as they cool and are fudgiest when fully cooled.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 185 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 27g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 55mg