Tuesday, December 16, 2008

"Try-It-You'll-Like-It" Black Bean Brownies

The Nourishing Gourmet is hosting a Nourishing Sweets and Treats Food Carnival today, featuring recipes sweetened with natural sweeteners. Baking is not my "thing", and I am no gourmet. I tend to avoid baked goods in general due to my gluten intolerance. However, since a person can only go without brownies for so long, I tweaked a black bean recipe that I found online. I realize that black beans and chocolate are not a food combination that would seem good at first glance. However, the beans do provide a moist, gluten-free "flour" for brownies and the taste is completely masked by the cocoa.

Ingredients:

15 oz. can black beans (drained and rinsed well)
3 eggs
1/2 cup agave nectar
3 T. cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking powder
2 T. olive oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350*F. Lightly oil an 8x8 baking pan. Mix all ingredients in a food processor or blender. (I use my stick blender.) Add the beans last and blend thoroughly. Bake for 30 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test. Allow to cool before slicing.

Confession: These brownies crack on the top when baking, but the cracks close up when they cool. If anyone comes up with a recipe tweak to prevent brownie crevasses, let me know! :-)

8 comments:

H said...

I am afraid to try these.

Meliss said...

Hi Hillary!

Do you fear the imagined taste? Or do you fear the explosive potential following consumption? ;-) In that case, I don't think you are in much danger unless you eat the whole pan all at once. :-O

Jen said...

I am going to have to try these. I will do anything I can to sneak nutritious food into my picky 10 year old. I frequently make brownies with a spinach and blueberry puree that he eats without ever knowing what is in there.

Zenseer said...

I just tried your recipe today with red kidney beans and it works! It makes a nice basic brownie recipe. I plan on experimenting with nuts, dried fruits and/or spices (cinnamon and cayenne pepper, like in Mexican hot chocolate ;) ).
I wonder if mixing the beans with some almond meal would make it a little bit more moist...

Anonymous said...

I made them on Saturday, took a bite and plan on taking them to a Christmas Eve party. Thanks for the recipe! Now I want Jen's blueberry spinach browie recipe...

Susan T

DivaKitty said...

These were great, tasted like really dark chocolate brownies. Husband liked them, and he is not a fan of black beans!

They were very cakey at first, but got fudgier the next day. I added some good dark chocolate chips to the mix. I'm going to try doubling the oil to see if that makes them fudgier. Oh and I used coconut oil.

Thanks for sharing this! It's awesome!

Karen said...

"Try-It-You'll-Like-It" is right! Holy cow, I just made these and they are amazing. Even the batter was delicious, very smooth and creamy. Thank you so much for giving me a recipe for a healthy treat that actually tastes good. I can't wait for my kids to get home from school, I know they are going to love them!

Karen said...

So, I just made these again, only this time I am taking them to my chiropractors office to have her try them, anyway, I doubled the recipe to make a 9x13 pan. The only change I made was I used 5 eggs (because that's all I had) and I increased the olive oil to 6 T. They turned out wonderful and no cracking on top...so maybe that is the secret, not sure. Thanks again!