Great British Brownie Bake-Off - Star Baker!

Back during Vegan Mofo last month we had a massive bake sale where I work. Vegans were pretty well represented as there are a few of us and my sister also made some vegan stuff. It was part of a series of annual Macmillan fundraising coffee mornings that were happening up and down the county. For any non UK readers, Macmillan is a charity who provide nurses to give help and support to people living with cancer and their families. Unlike a lot of the other cancer charities they aren't involved with research and animal testing and I've recently signed up to make a monthly donation and take part in their regular lottery. As part of the coffee morning we also had a baking challenge based on the Great British Bake-Off tv show to bake the best brownies. I only decided to enter on the last minute and to my surprise following a blind tasting my brownies were picked the winner! Here I am receiving my prize from Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood aka my work colleagues and judges Julian and Jo.

I must admit that I did some research on the internet to find the winning brownie recipe. Brownies are not something I eat very often and I find vegan brownies whilst tasting good can have more of a cakey texture that the traditional sqidgy brownie texture and I wanted to bake something as close as possible to what people associate with brownies. I used this recipe for Ultimate Vegan Brownies from Veganbaking.net and they captured the texture of regular brownies perfectly. I went with the suggestion of adding walnuts and I also added the zest of an orange. Instead of margarine I used coconut oil. I exercised strong willpower and let them cool overnight before cutting in the morning which I think is always a good tip with brownies. Did anyone else take part in a Macmillan coffee morning?