Healthy Black Bean Chocolate Brownies
These brownies make a great snack or healthy lunch box treat. I call them ‘Secret Ingredient Chocolate Brownies’. Our secret ingredient here are the black beans. It tickles the kids to have a secret hidden in their dish!
The brownies taste decadent and chocolaty. Nothing like the beans. And just to be sure of this, when we make this recipe in class, we taste the black beans before adding them to the batter.
This recipe comes together quickly and the room smells great when the brownies are baking. We usually play math games once the brownies are in the oven. I’ll ask the kids to figure out how to divide the 8X8 square into an equal number of pieces for everyone to get a brownie; how many will remain after everyone has eaten; the size of the brownies, etc. It often goes into lengthy negotiations within the group as to who will eat the ‘extra’ brownies and who will sacrifice. Sometimes they will forget to include me in their counting and have to start all over again. Obviously, I don’t point it out until the absolute last minute. 😈 Food is a good motivator for doing math!
BLACK BEAN CHOCOLATE BROWNIES
Ingredients:
1-½ cups black beans (1 15-oz can, drained and rinsed well)
2 flax eggs (2 tbsp ground flax seeds + 5 tbsp water)
1/4 cup raw cacao powder
1/2 cup coconut sugar
2 tbsp arrowroot flour
3 tbsp coconut oil
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
Preparation:
Make the flax egg: In a small bowl, mix 2 tbsp ground flax seeds with 5 tbsp water. Let it rest for 10 minutes to thicken.
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Drain the black beans in a colander and rinse very well under running water.
Combine all ingredients except the chocolate chips in a food processor, and blend until completely smooth, stopping to scrape the sides down as required. Blend very well.
Remove the S-blade. Stir in the chocolate chips, then pour into a greased 8×8 pan, spreading it to the edges.
Optional: sprinkle extra chocolate chips over the top.
Bake the brownies for 35-40 mins until the top is set and the edges start pulling away from the pan.
Let the brownies cool in the pan completely before cutting into pieces. If you think the brownies are still not set, place the pan in the refrigerator for 30 mins.
Get the kids cooking:
Kids can explore many new tastes while making these brownies. In my class, they’ve wanted to taste raw cacao and coconut sugar. Letting them taste the bitter cacao is a great opportunity to talk about how much sugar is needed to make commercially available chocolate taste sweet.
You absolutely have to take a moment to smell the vanilla. Take a deep whiff of it. And another one. It never fails to transport you to a happy place. I learnt this from little ones who refuse to move on with the recipe until everyone has had a turn to smell the vanilla!
Since we haven’t used any eggs in the recipe, the batter is safe for tasting and the bowl can be happily licked clean! In Fact the batter can be used as a dip with cut fruits, crackers or rice cakes - just leave the arrowroot & baking powder out.
Did you make this recipe? Please let me know how it turned out for you! Leave a comment below and share a picture on instagram and tag it with the hashtag #nibblengobble.
