written by Nina Shantel, blog: RealDietHelp.com, published January 9, 2023
My all-time favorite dessert is brownies, but I don’t use oil, margarine, white flour or sugar anymore because those ingredients make my blood sugar rise and cause me to gain belly fat.
Provided are a few different options to make these brownies taste close to the original, but with healthy (or healthier) ingredients, depending on what you choose. For instance, instead of vegan chocolate chips, you have the option of using strawberries for sweetness. You can also swap out 1 banana for 3 tablespoons of date sugar if you don’t have enough bananas.
If you want to make these brownies taste really close to original brownies, use chocolate chips instead of strawberries, and swap out one of the bananas, in the wet ingredients section, for date sugar or coconut sugar.
If the bananas are overly ripe or if you use large bananas instead of medium-sized bananas, the brownie batter will be thinner, more like a liquid instead of a batter. If your bananas are small or not very ripe, the batter will be drier and not as sweet, so try to use ripe medium-sized bananas, if you can.
Dry ingredients:
2 cups oats
3 T cocoa powder, level
1 tsp baking powder
2 T flax (or 2 T chia seeds soaked in 5T water)
1/3 cup chopped raw walnuts
1/3 cup Enjoy Life semi-sweet chocolate chips (or 16 small strawberries)
Wet ingredients
2 ripe peeled medium bananas, broken into 1-inch pieces
1 T vanilla extract
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
Glaze:
1 ripe peeled medium banana, broken into 1-inch pieces
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 T mixed chocolate batter (above)
Directions: Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 8×8 or 9×9 inch glass rectangular baking pan with parchment paper to make cleanup easier.
Grind flax seeds into a flour. If you don’t have flax seeds, put 2 T of chia seeds in a small bowl and stir in 5T water with a small spoon. Let the chia seeds soak for 5 minutes, stirring to make a gel, like an egg, this healthy fat allows the batter to bind. Mix in the chia egg with the wet ingredients.
Add the flax flour with the oats, cocoa and baking powder into a large food processor to make gluten-free flour. Pour the flour mixture into a large bowl.
Put wet ingredients (add chia egg here, if using instead of flax seeds), except for the black beans into the same food processor and blend until liquid. Then add the black beans to the food processor and blend again until the mixture looks like a thin chocolate batter.
Add the gluten-free flour blend you created, back into the food processor with the wet ingredients, and blend again to make a thick batter, some of which will mold into a thick chocolate ball (yum).
Remove the chocolate batter, except for 1 tablespoon of the batter, which will be used to make the glaze, from the food processor into the large bowl you used before.
Mix walnuts and chocolate chips (if using) into the batter with a large spoon.* Spoon the thick batter onto the lined baking dish. Smooth out the batter with a large spoon and a large fork or use gloves to mold the matter into the pan and make the top smooth and even.
Below is my favorite vegan chocolate chips. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
*If you aren’t using chocolate chips because you want less fat and you don’t eat sugar, insert four rows of frozen or fresh strawberries across and down the top of the batter. Press the strawberries into the batter just enough so you can see the top of the 16 strawberries in the pan. The strawberries add a touch of tartness, sweetness and moisture to transform the brownies into a brownie-fudge.
Place the brownies into the heated oven for 20 minutes. Remove the brownies from the oven, but keep the oven on, and place hot dish on a heat pad. To make the glaze, add banana and vanilla extract to the leftover batter, and blend until liquid. Spoon the glaze over the brownies evenly. Put back in the oven for another 5 minutes to warm and caramelize the glaze.
Remove cooked brownies from oven onto a trivet. Let brownies cool down. Using a butter knife, divide the brownies into 16 squares, four down and four across. I like them best warm.
When the brownies have cooled down, cover the rest with aluminum foil, making sure the foil does not touch the brownies, and place in the refrigerator.
Makes 16 brownies.
P.S. Photos shown are brownies without glaze (make sure to add the glaze though!)
Nutritional information for 16 brownies with chocolate chips:
Each: 138 calories 4 grams protein 17 grams net carbs 5 grams fat
Nutritional information for 16 brownies with strawberries, without chocolate chips:
Each: 113 calories 4 grams protein 15 grams net carbs 3 grams fat
Nutritional information for 16 brownies with strawberries, without chocolate chips and without walnuts
The walnuts make these brownies taste fantastic, so I only recommend omitting them if you are allergic to walnuts. They would probably also be fabulous with chopped almonds:
Each: 98 calories 3 grams protein 14 grams net carbs 2 grams fat
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