The Healthy Brownie?

Every once and a while I get a sudden urge to bake.  I love baking, don't get me wrong, I would bake all the time if I had any manners to actually share the baked goods.  But I don't.  I eat them all by myself.  So knowing I would eat the whole pan, I set out for a guilt-free brownie.  I also didn't feel like running to the store for ingredients, so in my search bar I typed the ingredients I had on hand.  And wouldn't you know, I hit the jackpot.  Dubbed by its creator as The Ultimate Vegan Brownies, it was a trap right from the beginning.  They had me at ultimate and brownie and vegan? Great, I didn't have any eggs anyway.  As if that would have deterred me.

I whipped them up in no time, but then had to wait and wait and wait until they cooled completely before I could try one.  It was worth the wait.  Just what I wanted. As soon as Nate figured out what was going on in the kitchen, he joined me.  In no time at all, the brownies were gone.  I'll just have to make more!

I made a few substitutions to her recipe only because I didn't have the ingredients in the pantry, if you would like her original recipe click here.

The Healthy Brownie?

1 cup coconut oil

4 oz. (or 112 grams) unsweetened 72% dark chocolate

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup hazelnut coffee (or use whatever is leftover from the morning)

2 cups organic coconut sugar (or really any sugar will do white, brown, raw, etc unless you're a true vegan)

1 cup cake or pastry flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup dutch process cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 Tbsp chia seeds (she used ground flax seed)

6 Tbsp hot water

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and grease an 8 x 8 pan.

2. In a double boiler or a bowl set atop a pot of gently simmering water, melt the coconut oil, chocolate squares and vanilla together.

3. Stir the coffee into the coconut/chocolate mixture. Add sugar and remove from heat. The sugars will dissolve a bit but you don’t need to completely dissolve it.

4. In another bowl, sift together the flours, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk to combine.

5. In yet another bowl (small one), mix the chia seeds and 6 Tbsp of hot water, allow to sit for 5 minutes.

6. Combine the chocolate/coconut oil mixture with the flour mixture and stir to incorporate. Add the thickened chia seeds and stir that in as well.

7. Pour the batter into the greased baking pan and bake for 30-40 minutes. Start checking the brownies after the first 30 minutes to ensure it is baking evenly.

8. When finished, remove the brownies from the oven, set atop a cooling rack and get busy somewhere else.These babies need to be utterly cooled before consuming. If you attempt to eat them before they are properly cooled, they will crumble.

I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!