Blaire's Dairy-Free Chocolate Chip Brownies

Or more accurately, Eli's Dairy-Free Chocolate Chip Brownies!

I don’t often devote blog posts to the Girl of the Year dolls, mostly because this is meant to be a historical cooking blog, and current food history isn’t always as exciting as trying out Abraham Lincoln’s favorite cake. Sometimes exceptions are made, though, and so today’s recipe is inspired by and from Blaire’s second book Blaire Cooks Up a Plan. 

Blaire Wilson is the Girl of the Year for 2019. She’s from a fictional town in upstate New York, and lives on her family farm with her parents, younger brother, and grandfather. She’s recently discovered she’s lactose intolerant and trying to figure out how to cope with that, while also helping a family friend plan a wedding and learning about food insecurity, or when people are in the position of not being sure when, where, or what their next meal will be. 

It’s a lot to cover in two books, and I have some thoughts and opinions on how well it’s tackled. Read on to find out more, as well as a review of the dairy free brownie recipe featured in her books!

On the surface, I really like Blaire’s collection and theme, as well as the doll herself. Redheaded dolls are my weakness, as are anything to do with food and cooking, so her collection really worked well for me. I’m also in the middle of planning a wedding (actually a vow renewal and reception for my wife and I’s first anniversary), so that side of her theme also feels pretty on the nose for my life and interests. 

Additionally, I’ve also had some frustrating food related diagnoses over the last few years. It’s nothing super serious, but I’ve had to undergo a lot of testing along with trial and error to figure out why my body isn’t digesting food properly. One doctor has suggested I might have developed lactose intolerance – just like Blaire – and I do think there might be some truth to it, in addition to some other digestive issues we’re still trying to figure out. Having to stress out about what food you can eat at a restaurant or party, weighing the pluses and minuses of risking feeling sick on the drive home or the next morning, worrying about explaining to your coworkers why you came in late or have to work from home is all really frustrating and annoying. It’s not a life threatening allergy fortunately, but it’s still majorly inconvenient and can be embarrassing to talk about. My intolerance isn’t as bad as Blaire’s, but it’s still a really frustrating part of my day to day life, especially when paired with my other unpredictable symptoms. 

So I empathize with Blaire, and think the parts of her stories that talk about her allergy are well done and feel realistic. It really stinks growing up being able to eat things and then suddenly finding out you can’t unless you want to feel awful, and not everyone understands that you might want to avoid the food trigger even if it’s not going to kill you like a real allergy can. 

That said, I honestly didn’t like her books too much. They tried to cover a lot of topics in too short a time, and while I was willing to give the idea of a kid wedding planner a chance, the way it was done was just so unbelievable I had a hard time taking the rest of the book seriously. On the whole, the only Girl of the Year series I’ve genuinely enjoyed were Grace and Gabby’s, and unfortunately Blaire’s is another disappointment, even though I do like her collection and overall look.

This brownie recipe is one of three recipes included in the back of Blaire Cooks Up a Plan, her second book and the one focusing more specifically on the issue of food insecurity. We’ll probably talk more about that subplot later. These brownies are titled “Eli’s Dairy Free Brownies,” and are meant to represent brownies Blaire’s new classmate and friend Eli brings in for snack time at school so she doesn’t have to eat a snack from home and can feel more included. Blaire feels excited that Eli and his mom thought of her when making the snack, as other classmates haven’t provided dairy free snacks when they’ve brought in treats to share. 

The recipe has a few ingredients I wouldn’t normally put in brownies – maple syrup, soy milk – but the major additions to make them dairy free are soy milk and dairy free semi-sweet chocolate chips. I think the chocolate chips are really the only ingredient with dairy in it that would go in most from scratch brownie recipes (you can sub out butter with other fats), so I’m a little puzzled by the decision to feature this recipe versus something else. It’s totally possible to do dairy free brownies just normally – I’d say most of the brownies I’ve ever made or eaten in the past are made with oil as the fat, not butter. Blaire also makes a coconut milk crème brûlée in her first book which I would have been way more excited to see a recipe for, but I guess that wouldn’t have fit the theme of recipes used in her second book, and the other two recipes featured are definitely Book 2 specific. 

They’re pretty easy to make, and the original recipe definitely calls for enough ingredients to share. You can cut it in half if you’re looking for less brownies. 

To start, whisk together 1 cup vegetable oil, 1 cup maple syrup, 1/2 cup of soy milk, and 1 tablespoon of vanilla in a large bowl. In a second bowl, combine 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 1/2 cups of sugar, two tablespoons of baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Mix everything together and add in one cup of dairy free semisweet chocolate chips. These can be a little tricky to find – AG recommends looking for Enjoy Life branded chips, which is what we ended up finding. Our grocery store only had mini chocolate chips, and the whole bag was approximately one cup. These are also available on Amazon and a few other retailers if none of your local stores have them, but since dietary issues are so much better understood and publicized today, I would guess more places will have them than won’t.

The batter gets poured into a 9 x 13 inch pan, or if you’re me, two 8 x 8 pans because you don’t have a 9 x 13 pan for some reason. Another thing to add to the bridal registry, I suppose. They cook for about 35 minutes at 350 degrees, or until a knife inserted in the middle of the pan come out clean. My metal pan which wound up with slightly less batter was done around the 35 minute mark, but my glass pan needed about ten extra minutes before being ready to remove from the oven.

Let them cool completely, cut them up, and you’re ready to serve!

So, how did they taste? 

I honestly didn’t love them. They were just solidly “okay.” I like brownies, and I like sweet chocolate things, and they definitely delivered in that regard, but they definitely weren’t as good as some other brownies I’ve eaten before. For having so much baking powder, they weren’t very light and the texture was pretty fudgy, but not necessarily in a pleasant way. It’s hard to describe. Maybe gummy is the word I’m looking for? 

Flavor wise, they were similarly fine but not amazing. I’ve had much better brownies in the past, and considering this recipe asks for ingredients I don’t normally keep in my house – soy milk particularly, I drink FairLife milk now – I think I’d be more likely to make those again than go back to this recipe. They also tasted extremely oily, and left a sort of bitter aftertaste in my mouth that I'm definitely not a fan of and haven't experienced with other brownie recipes. 

Jess had a completely different reaction and genuinely liked both the flavor and the texture of the brownies, which makes me wonder if I’m just becoming too picky. I’m grateful though, because we have a lot of brownies to eat and pass off on my coworkers, so hopefully a few of them will like them as well. 

I will say, the chocolate chips themselves were really nice. They tasted pretty similar to normal semi-sweet chocolate chips and had the same texture, so if you’re sensitive to dairy to the point of not being able to consume any of it, these would definitely be a brand worth investigating. I think they also sell them in chunks and possibly larger chips, but the mini chips were very nice and I’d definitely be happy to pick more up if I ever had a need to swap over to a fully nondairy diet. 

My final verdict would be this is a good recipe if you’re planning a Blaire specific event and want to use the AG approved recipe straight from her book, but if you’re just looking for some dairy free brownies, look for a recipe that uses oil instead of butter and go from there. These were kind of disappointing and aren’t something I’d make again.

Stay tuned for another Blaire themed recipe in the next couple weeks!