It's the Brownie Decade

Food writer Lesley Chesterman wrote in the Regina Leader-Post that brownies are poised to be the hot next big dessert. Now, I love brownies. And I rarely eat them because what I love about them is their concentrated quantities of fat and sugar. And chocolate. But nothing low-cal and low-fat and healthy ever becomes the hot big dessert, so we make do.

And I guess we'll make do well, because there are brownies for everybody, even those of us with special diet needs.

Though we have yet to see an entire store devoted to the brownie (I'd bet money someone in New York has one in the planning stages), there are cookbooks devoted solely to this rich little square - a startling 32 by last count on Amazon.com. When one such brownie book, The Brownie Lover's Bible (Whitecap, 2008), hit my desk just before Christmas, I tossed it into the "no thanks" pile but quickly retrieved it, recalling all the cupcake books I rolled my eyes at when that trend hit a decade back. I scanned the pages and found recipes ranging from the classic brownie to vegan brownies with cocoa nibs and sesame seeds. There are gluten-free brownies, dairy-free brownies, no-bake brownies, balsamic brownies, crunchy brownies, fudgy brownies, raspberry brownies, coconut brownies and, for when you're feeling a bit sluggish, triple espresso brownies.

Chesterman gives the winning recipe from a home taste test in that article. Substitute a non-dairy margarine for the butter and it's dairy and lactose-free.

I list nondairy stick margarines on the Margarines page in my Milk-Free Bookstore.