Brownies - but not the Girl Guides

To get some semblance of order into our household, following Richard’s various trips to out-of-hours GPs, specialist nurses and our local surgery I’ve been interested in brownies:
(No, not the younger versions of the Girl Guide movement, but chocolate brownies, those appetising snacks which can be dressed up or down.)

Brownies are an interesting phenomenon. They are not quite cake, not quite chocolate, not quite a biscuit but ever so slightly great as a simple pudding. In my bid to stay healthy and get thin(ner) this September I’m casting around for low sugar, low carb recipes. And, having signed up for Cancer Research UK’s Sweatember event I exercise daily, have my sponsors and will thereby endeavour to stay fit. 

My breakfast is still either steel-cut, whole-grain porridge with berries - a low GI start to the day, or eggs. Both morning choices are filling. Healthy soups for lunch are about right for September onwards, now that temperatures are dropping. Lentil falafel - a speciality of vegan restaurants - are a great alternative for lunch if I’m eating out. 

Over the summer I haven’t had a particularly sweet tooth. Perhaps because it was so warm glasses of water and plenty of fruit or good, thick Greek yogurt were satisfying enough. But as we head into autumn (the sun is lower in the sky, it’s dark by 8:15pm and counting, vegetation growth is slowing down, plants are raggedy and need trimming or removing) I have a greater need for sweetness.

I love baking my red kidney bean chocolate cake but last week I wanted something I could bake and eat without having to make a ganache or a filling. And I happened upon a red kidney bean brownie recipe. 

I had no idea whether the end result would be brittle, hard, fudge-like or cakey. I just followed the recipe, with minor amendments and sought further advice at the end stage. The tooth pick to test whether the mixture has baked properly should not come out clean: be warned!! I go into more details in point 6 below.

Ingredients

• 11/2 cans of red kidney beans - drained and rinsed
• 1/4 cup creamy butter 
• 2 tablespoons Mernier cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 2 Tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon (brown) Truvia sweetener (this is the Truvia equivalent of 1/3 cup of brown sugar) 
• 3/4 tabspoon Truvia sweetener (equivalent of white sugar)
• 1/4 cup cold-pressed virgin olive oil 
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
• 1/2 cup grated Belgian Cachet chocolate (56% cocoa) - their cherry and almonds variety is especially marvellous

In order to make this sweet sugar-free it’s important to be gluten-free too. If wheat-based flours are used the carbohydrates reduce down to sugar. Red kidney beans are a much better alternative.

The only major decision I pondered over in my prep was the depth of the baking tin. I read that a shallow, swiss roll type tin would yield a thin, rather hard brownie. Anything too deep like the average cake pan would produce a cakey, slightly undercooked brownie. I chose a *shallow, rectangular, pyrex dish which I lined with greaseproof paper. Another time I may use a half-size swiss roll tin and aim not to spread the mixture too thinly.

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 deg f, 150 c fan. 
2. Combine all ingredients except the grated chocolate in a food processor. Pulse for 30 seconds until smooth and creamy. Remove the mixture to another bowl. 
3. Break the chocolate into smaller pieces and pulse in the food processor. The noise is terrific at first, but after 20-30 seconds the chocolate should have broken down. Stir the pulsed chocolate into the mixture or add the mixture to the chocolate in the food processor and do a final pulse so that the chocolate pieces are evenly distributed.
4. Line a rectangular glass pyrex dish* or smaller swiss roll tin* and pour the brownie mixture in it. Take a spatula to smooth out the top.
5. Bake the brownies for 20-22minutes until the top has a shiny, papery crust and the sides are just beginning to come away from the tin or dish. Take out of the oven.
6. When a tooth pick comes out slightly gooey and crumbly it’s done. If it’s clean it’s overcooked but if it’s runny and liquid brown it’s undercooked. 
7. Cool for two hours and then slice and serve.If it is properly cooked it should slice into squares without crumbling or breaking up.

The brownies I make using this mixture are more fudge-like than cake. The pieces are rich and good enough as a snack with a coffee or a cuppa. However it’s rather lovely to warm through the brownie shapes and serve with caramel or toffee ice cream, vanilla ice cream or Fage Total Greek yogurt ( the 5% Fage yogurt is thick, rich and creamy.

Gorgeous. 

Your brownies won’t hang around in a tin for long!