Not So Bad For You, But Super Tasty, Vegan Brownies

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I went through a phase a couple months ago where I was making these vegan brownies from the Peas and Thank You cookbook just about every single day.  Yes, they were that good, and yes, they are low-fat enough where I could make them a lot.  I hadn't made them in a while, so I decided to make them tonight :)

Now let me set your expectations.  These are not going to be super ooey gooey brownies.  If you find a recipe that produces that kind of brownie with no oil or sugar, please let me know.  These brownies are going to be kind of fluffly, but there are a couple tricks I use to make sure they are super moist, uber chocolatey, a still pretty fudgy.

The original recipe calls for sugar, but I can't really have sugar, so I use agave nectar.  I have also been amazed by how far sugar free chocolate has come.  I didn't use sugar free chocolate in this recipe because my nephew ate my last bar, but using sugar free chocolate would also be super good and would decrease the calories by a good amount as well.

So here is the recipe:

3/4 c. whole wheat pastry or white whole wheat flour
1/3 cup dutch processed cocoa powder
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 c. unsweetened applesauce (I recommend making your own, it is very easy.)
3/8 c. agave nectar
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 c. dark chocolate chips (or sugar free chocolate chopped)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray an 8x8 inch baking dish with cooking spray.  In a large mixing bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients together (except chocolate chips).  Add in all of the wet ingredients and stir until well combined.  Add in the chocolate chips and stir until well incorporated.

Pour the ingredients into the baking dish and back for 18-20 mins until the edges start to pull away from the pan.

Now here is the trick to keeping the brownies moist.  Pull the brownies out of the oven and onto a cooling rack.  Cover brownies with aluminum foil, this traps in the moisture as they cool down.  Let the brownies cool to room temperature then slice into 2x4 inch brownies.

You can substitute 1 c. of mashed bananas for the applesauce to make banana brownies which are also very tasty.

Quick Tip: If they make it to the next day, I heat my brownie in the microwave for 10 seconds to melt the chocolate chips before devouring :)

So yeah, they get a c- score on nutrition. But they are a dessert :) and 3.1 grams of dietary fiber is not too shabby. Especially since you can't even tell that they are made from whole wheat flour. These are the nutrition facts for using regular chocolate. I wonder what they would look like with the sugar-free chocolate. hmmmmm......

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