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Can I Freeze Dry Brownies?
Oh, honey, yes. But let’s be honest, brownie dough is better than freeze drying cooked brownies. I’m freeze drying foods for my food storage for situations where food might not be easily accessible – low income points, end of the world, and more. Chocolate brownies or other treats like ice cream or candy will be comfort foods and moments of bright light during dark times.
All kinds of treats are delicious, but chocolate does something to the soul.
Especially, edible raw brownie dough.
How Do You Freeze Dry Brownie Dough
I love this Pillsbury Brownie Dough you can buy in the dairy section. This is safe to eat or bake. And yes, I’ve done both. You can also make your own.
If you do decide to use the Pillsbury style dough, there are some fun tricks to take with this dough. My favorite is to do it raw. We’ll discuss why later.
The brownies come in a round disc in packs of twelve. They’re slightly sticky like a regular brownie mix that has been put through the fridge or other cooling process.
I like to cut the discs into quarters and pile them up on the trays.
What’s the Best Way To Freeze Dry Brownie Dough
Make sure there’s enough room between the chunks, but don’t get obsessive about it. Brownie dough is fun and easy to do. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be.
If you’re doing homemade dough, you can roll it into teaspoon sized balls and place them on the trays.
How Long Does It Take to Freeze Dry Brownie Dough
This batch took me 38 hours, but remember, freeze drying times are NOT gospel. What works for me isn’t always going to work for you. We live in different areas with different humidity and temperatures.
Remember, check the temperatures of the brownie bites before you pull them from the freeze dryer.
How Do You Know Your Brownie Dough Is Done?
The brownie dough was soft before going into the freeze dryer, but after, it’s firm and can crumble with more pressure than you’d think.
I love eating this like candy – or brownies hahaha. They pop in your mouth rather easily but aren’t too hard to chew. They even melt as they reconstitute.
If you want to bake them, wrap them in a damp paper towel for a couple hours and then place on a cookie tray and cook for 350 degrees until done.
When you’re using your food storage and not losing any weight because of all the treats, you can thank me then. 😉
HOW DO I FREEZE DRY BROWNIE DOUGH?
Many people think it’s next to impossible to do the freeze drying for themselves. This is far from factual. Freeze drying at home is made easy by Harvest Right. They sell three different sizes of freeze-drying machines that do everything in the machine – except prep and package.
That’s up to you.
For all intents and purposes, here at Freeze Drying Mama we use the medium sized freeze dryer. You can check out the sizes offered at Harvest Right here.
What this machine does is first freeze the items on stainless steel trays to -41 degrees or lower. This takes about 10 hours or so.
Then a vacuum pump turns on and creates a vacuum inside the drum. This is the drying stage and will vacillate the heat of the tray up and down to a pretty warm temperature. This makes the frozen items release any water in them in vapor form. The vacuum sucks the moisture to the drum. This collects in ice form on the inner circle of the drum.
Then there’s the final dry which is essentially the same thing, but with a time associated with it and an end in sight!
WHAT SETTINGS DO I USE TO FREEZE DRY BROWNIE DOUGH?
On the Harvest Right freeze drier – this works on all sizes – after putting the trays inside the drum on the shelves, I put in the drum cover and then tighten the handle as I lock it shut. On the computer touch screen, I selected START >NON-LIQUID > NOT FROZEN > CONTINUE. After inputting the settings and making sure my drain tube was closed, I walked away.