Monkey Style Vegan Brownies

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Lately, I have been focussing on trying to reduce sugar and other processed sweeteners from my diet.  This has led me to revamp my original vegan brownie recipe to get rid of the sugar and bring in the bananas :)  I made these last night for dessert and they turned out great, so I decided to share.

Ingredients:
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1/3 c. cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ancho chili powder (to amp up the chocolate flavor)
3/4 c. ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 c. unsweetened apple sauce
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c. dark chocolate chips

Serving size is one 2x4 inch brownie

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray an 8x8 baking dish with cooking spray.  Whisk all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.  Add in all of the we ingredients and whisk until incorporated.  Once incorporated, stir in the chocolate chips.  Pour the batter into the baking dish and smooth into an even layer.    Bake for 15-18 minutes until the edges begin to pull away from the sides of the baking dish.

Once the brownies are done baking, place them on a wire rack and tent loosely with foil.  The trick here is to keep them as moist as possible.  Let the brownies cool for 15-20 mins before eating.  Make sure to store these in the refrigerator since they have banana in them.  I like to put my brownies in the microwave for 15-20 seconds to warm them up before eating.  These brownies are moist and fudgy with the perfect level of sweetness and the slightest hint of banana.  Makes 8 huge brownies.

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J.R. and I were both busy in the kitchen tonight and didn't realize that our cats (mainly Champ) had found a roll of toilet paper and proceeded to do their best to destroy it.

J.R. presenting the evidence, you can also see bits of
toilet paper all over the living room floor
in the background.

Champ's mug shot with exhibit A.  He is also not supposed to be on the table and he knows it.  So this is his, "oh crap, I'm caught!" face.

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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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