Clean Eating Brownies

My son hates black beans.  He refuses to eat them.  I love that he ate them tonight in these clean eating brownies without a clue.  He’s ten years old, so there is not much fooling him at this age when it comes to sneaky healthy ingredients. 

One of my favorite blogging friends, Heather, at Basilmomma, shared a great black bean brownie recipe from Melissa D’arabian at Food Network.com.  Please check out Heather’s site.  She’s brilliant in the kitchen!  Her version sounded really good, so I wanted to give it a try. 

I made black bean brownies in the past and wasn’t thrilled with the result.  They were a little too “beany” for me.  I agree with Heather that you really do get better results with dried black beans instead of the canned.  I cooked my dried beans with no salt.  This made a big difference in the taste.  The key to success with these brownies is thoroughly rinsing your beans before adding them to the blender and blending them until they are a smooth consistency. 

Heather made this whole brownie recipe in the blender, but my sad little Oster blender almost died when I added all the ingredients to mix.  Oh how I wish that I had a Vitamix….Anyway, I blended the beans and oil in the blender until VERY smooth and then mixed the rest in my KitchenAid mixer.  Perfect results, without screeching kitchen appliances.  I cleaned up the ingredients a little bit to make them fit into my clean eating plan.  The first batch was made with the coffee flavoring (in the original recipe), but we were not a fan of the flavor.  So, I substituted a little more vanilla extract and left out the coffee.  I also used oat flour, sucanat and truvia instead of regular flour and refined sugar.  We are THRILLED with the results.  My whole family gobbled these up and asked for seconds and my son ate black beans.  Victory!

Clean Eating Brownies

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease a 9×9 square baking pan with butter flavored cooking spray.  In a blender, puree the cooked and rinsed black beans with the safflower and olive oil.  Pour into the bowl of an electric mixer.  Add eggs, cocoa, sucanat, truvia and vanilla.  Melt half the chocolate chips and add to mixer.  Blend on medium until smooth.  In a small bowl, whisk together oat flour, baking powder and salt.  Add to the mixer until just incorporated.  Stir in remaining chocolate chips.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 20 minutes, until surface looks somewhat matte around the edges and shiny in the middle.  Let cool at least 15 minutes before cutting.  Dust with powdered sugar and serve.  Deceptively scrumptious!

Clean Eating Brownies

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Prep Time 10 mins Cook Time 20 mins Total Time 0:30

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup cooked black beans (dried beans preferred over canned), thoroughly rinsed and drained, no salt added
• 1/4 cup safflower oil
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 whole organic eggs
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2/3 cup sucanat (this is a clean eating sweetener and wonderful in baked recipes)
• 2 small single serving packets of truvia ( a stevia based natural sweetener)
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, divided
• 1/3 cup oat flour (I used Bob's Mill gluten free oat flour)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar, for dusting ( I used WheyLow powdered sugar )

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grease a 9x9 square baking pan with butter flavored cooking spray.
3. In a blender, puree the cooked and rinsed black beans with the safflower and olive oil.
4. Pour into the bowl of an electric mixer.
5. Add eggs, cocoa, sucanat, truvia and vanilla.
6. Melt half the chocolate chips and add to mixer.
7. Blend on medium until smooth.
8. In a small bowl, whisk together oat flour, baking powder and salt.
9. Add to the mixer until just incorporated.
10. Stir in remaining chocolate chips.
11. Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 20 minutes, until surface looks somewhat matte around the edges and shiny in the middle.
12. Let cool at least 15 minutes before cutting.
13. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

by Amee Livingston

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Clean eating brownies for the win!