Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Black Bean Brownies!

I've had a wild sweet-tooth lately.

I couldn't figure out what I wanted to bake, but I knew I wanted to bake something low-fat, innovative, and of course...delicious.

I've been thinking about black bean brownies for a while, so I looked up several recipes and picked my favorite. Voila!

Courtesy of allrecipes.com :

BLACK BEAN BROWNIES

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
3 eggs (I used cage free, my brownies are humane! Haha)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used 3 tbs applesauce instead)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp instant coffee (optional, but I put it in)
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips (again, optional, but who DOESN'T need chocolate in brownies?!)


Basically, you combine all of the ingredients (minus the chocolate chips) in a blender and blend. It took about a minute for my blender to work all the ingredients down into a smooth liquid. I poured the mixture into a square baking dish (pre-greased, of course) and slid them into a 350-degree pre-heated oven. They take about 30 minutes to bake.

This is a TERRIBLE quality picture. My Blackberry wasn't doing it's typical awesome job of picture-taking. But here they are, in all their glory:


















They were sooo amazing. Besides from having a SLIGHTLY chalky nature (I suppose from the cocoa powder and beans) I couldn't tell the difference between these and real brownies. The lack of flour makes them gluten-free, so these are an outstanding option for anyone who is gluten-intolerant or doesn't want it in their diet.

My other motive for baking was this:

http://eatngroove.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/namaste-giveaway/

The twins' Namaste Giveaway! They're giving away a Namaste tote as well as assorted goodies. The muffin/toffee frosting mix they sampled looked great, so I figured I'd give entering their giveaway a shot. It's the first I've ever entered, and I probably read about 97973973 blogs that offer monthly giveaways. Wish me luck!

That's it for this post...I'm gonna go stuff myself silly on some more brownies. ;]