Black Bean Brownies

I follow a lot of vegan and gluten free accounts on Instagram and recently my favorite gluten free-Instagrammer, Brooke (@celiactivist on IG) shared a picture of a delicious looking brownie. After reading the caption I realized it was a black bean brownie, which sounds kind of nasty, not gonna lie. But the brownie looked so good in the picture, I was intrigued. I found a black bean brownie recipe on Chocolate Covered Katie's blog, but decided to double the recipe because I was using a 9 inch by 11 inch pan.

Ingredients (doubled from original recipe)

• 1 29oz can of black beans (drained and rinsed well)

• 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder

• 1 cup of quick oats

• 1/2 tablespoon salt

• ⅔ cups of maple syrup (or honey)

• 4 tablespoons of sugar

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

• 4 teaspoons of vanilla extract

• 1 teaspoon of baking powder

• As many chocolate chips as you would like (I would agree with Katie that the more the merrier)

Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F

2. Blend all ingredients in a food processor until it is a batter consistency (or blender, just make sure it is liquid-y enough) (don’t blend chocolate chips!!)

3. Stir in chocolate chips

4. Grease baking pan with butter or Pam and pour in batter

5. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes

6. Let cool for ~10 minutes and then enjoy!

These were the first black bean brownies I have ever tried, both to make and to eat, and I was pleasantly surprised. In the future I would add a little less salt and maybe a little more sugar, but they were super yummy AND gluten and vegan free! They were also pretty easy to make, so I definitely will make these again.

From left to right: batter before baked, final brownie, batter after baking