Very Chocolatey Black Bean Brownies

Published on 1^st December 2017

Credit: Diana Warrings, DipION | IRMA GREEN© NUTRITION | www.irmagreen.com

Makes 12

Ingredients:

• Coconut oil or ghee for greasing the baking tray
• 1 x 400 g can of black beans, drained
• ½ vanilla pod (scraped out)
• 4 medium eggs
• 60 g coconut oil or 100 g ghee
• 50 g soaked dates
• 50 g raw cane sugar
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 50 g raw chocolate powder
• 80 g dark chocolate (85 per cent), chopped into small chunks
• 40 g almonds or walnuts roughly chopped
• 1 tsp of Christmas spice mix or finely ground coffee (optional)
• ½ tsp of sea salt

For the Christmas spice mix: (alternatively you can buy this in the supermarket)

• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp of ground ginger
• ½ tsp ground dried orange peel
• ½ tsp of ground dried lemon peel
• ¼ tsp of ground clove
• ¼ tsp of ground nutmeg
• ¼ tsp of ground cardamom
• ¼ tsp of ground star anise

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven at 160C. Lightly grease a 20 x 30 cm brownie tin or line the tin with baking parchment. Blitz the beans, dates, spice mix and vanilla, 2 eggs and sea salt in a blender until smooth.
2. Over a bain-marie melt ¾ of the chocolate at about 40 degrees, once melted add the ghee or coconut oil and leave to melt too, stirring occasionally. 
3. In the meantime, whisk the 2 remaining eggs with the sugar and bicarbonate of soda until well combined and creamy; then slowly add the cocoa powder and melted chocolate and whisk into a smooth cream. Finally, stir in the bean mix until well combined and fold in the rest of the chocolate chunks and the chopped nuts.
4. Pour the mix into the brownie tin and bake for about 25-30 minutes. Leave to cool, then cut into squares and dust with raw chocolate powder or cinnamon. The brownies will keep in the fridge for a week, just make sure they are kept in an air tight container.

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