Healthy Black Bean Brownies

I finally finished up my 6 cups of cooked black beans that came from my $1, 1 pound of black beans with this brownie recipe. It's a wonderful challenge to make a version of something considered "indulgent" and make a version you don't have to feel guilty about or save for a "cheat day."

These black bean brownies are a great afternoon pick me up because they are loaded with protein, and fiber and they are sweetened with coconut sugar, which doesn't spike your blood sugar, giving you a steady supply of energy until dinnertime. All the ingredients have health benefits, so they are a perfect alternative to traditional brownies. When the afternoon slump hits, people generally are not very picky about their sweet snacks. So even if these don't taste as delectable as a traditional brownie, at 3 pm, all you see is brownie and chocolate, and all you feel is happiness when you it hits your tongue. 

The true point of pride I found while creating this recipe is finding a use for all that horrible, unspreadable peanut butter you find at the bottom of the jar of natural peanut butter. I just break it up into small chunks so they become little peanut butter chips/chunks in the brownies. Genius. 

Here are the ingredients...

1 1/3 cup of cooked black beans

2/3 cup of cacao powder (or cocoa powder)

1/3 cup of coconut sugar

2 eggs (or flax eggs to keep it vegan)

3 tbls. of coconut oil

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 chocolate chips

3/4 cup of broken up peanut butter chunks from the bottom of the natural peanut butter jar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In this recipe mix it in a blender so it would blend through the beans. First put the beans in the blender to pulse them up alone. Then add the eggs, turning it all more into a liquid so it would blend through evenly. 

2. Add all the other ingredients EXCEPT for the peanut butter chunks and chocolate chips. Blend until smooth. 

3. Stir in the chocolate chips and peanut butter chunks to maintain their chunkiness. 

4. Pour in a cake tin or in muffin tins like I did. I filled the muffin tins nearly full and they cooked for about 20 minutes.  Cooking time depends on baking tin. Brownies that are thinner and spread-out take less time.If your batter is spreading out thinly, I would recommend checking on it after just 10 minutes and checking by running a knife in the middle. If it comes out clean, it's done. If it comes out with batter, continue cooking, checking again every 2 minutes. The last thing you want is dry, over-cooked brownies. 

5. TRY to let it cool for 10 minutes before indulging... I KNOW this is the hardest step. I'm only saying try...

6. Eat and enjoy. I love pouring a hot cup of tea while eating. Here I have peppermint tea with my chocolate brownie... mint and brownie. Mmmmmm.