These Very Chocolatey Butter Bean Brownies are such a decadent and healthy dessert – with melt in the mouth consistency, incredibly chocolatey and light at the same time. They are gluten free and refined sugar free with abundance of healthy protein, fats and fibre.
You will understand why once you read the ingredient list 🙂
The most of the cake is actually beans 🙂 I used one and a half cup beans and only half cup flour for the whole cake and the best one in my opinion, brown rice flour.
And for the fat I used coconut oil. Did you know that our body doesn’t metabolise coconut oil like other fats? You know how usually they are left last to be used as energy and most of times end up building up on our tummy and hips? Well not coconut oil. It is metabolised same as carbs, so first to go:)! This means that it rises our metabolism levels, gives us energy and doesn’t get stored as fat in our organism. Cool isn’t it?!
If you’re wondering why I added coffee and lemon, it is just to enhance the flavour of chocolate…you won’t taste either one of them.
These brownies are super easy to make too. It took me 20 minutes to prepare the batter (since I already had cooked beans). And another 20 to bake et voila! You can even eat them warm…with a scoop of vanilla ice cream 🙂
It’s ok to use canned beans too (just wash them well before – it will eliminate the bean-y flavour). It will still be good even though I prefer cooking my own. Always bit more delicious. And more creamy for some reason…
The beans blended with agave syrup, cocoa, vanilla, salt and coffee are so incredibly rich and creamy, and delicious that I sometimes serve them like a chocolate mousse (I just add some coconut oil to get that mousse-like consistency after chilling).
When I first made these brownies, although they were perfectly delicious, I didn’t like the fact that they were a bit crumbly so I added Xantam Gum to the flour – worked like a charm. Second time they came out with perfect consistency – fluffy and melting in the mouth, but still perfectly holding the shape when cut.
OK, I’ll stop rambling now and we can proceed to the recipe.
Very Chocolatey Butter Bean Brownies
Ingredients
- 1,5 cup butter beans cooked
- 1/2 cup ground hazelnuts
- 1/2 cup agave syrup
- 1/3 cup extra virgin coconut oil
- 1/2 tsp Himalayan salt
- 1 tsp vanilla powder
- 1/2 cup rice flour
- 1 cup cacao powder
- 1/2 tsp xantam gum
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder or coffee substitute I used Dandy Blend
- 1 cup rice or oat or almond milk plus 2-3 tbsp if needed + 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/4 cup hazelnuts chopped, for decorating
- 1/4 cup chopped chocolate or chocolate chips
Instructions
- Wash, drain and pat dry beans if using canned ones to avoid the bean-y taste.
- Put them in food processor with melted coconut oil, agave syrup, salt and vanilla and blend until smooth and creamy.
- Place in a bowl ground hazelnuts, cocoa, rice flour, xantan gum, instant coffee, baking soda and baking powder. Mix carefully and add milk with apple cider vinegar.
- Now add blended mixture of beans to it and mix carefully. Keep mixing and adding milk gradually.
- The consistency should be fairly thick but still pourable. At this point you can fold in chocolate chips if using.
- Pour it in a lined tin 20×20 cm and sprinkle chopped hazelnuts on top (or chocolate if you prefer).
- Bake on 180° for 30 minutes.
- Test if it’s done with a tooth pick. It should come out clean. They will still be pretty soft when ready.
- Leave them to cool as they will firm up.
- Keep in the fridge to get them to be even firmer