I love these brownies I have given them to ‘brownie haters’ and they have liked them!

Seriously rich and delicious brownies with way more goodness than the normal ones!

Ingredients

400g/2 1/2 cups Raw Beetroot peeled and roughly chopped (use plastic gloves if you don’t want to stain your fingers) then add to saucepan and boil/steam till tender.

150g/1 cup Plain Chocolate,

100g/1/2 cup coconut oil

1 tsp Vanilla extract,

100g/3/4 cup Coconut sugar

pinch of salt (pink rock salt or sea salt)

3 Eggs (To replace one egg: 1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds/chia 3 tablespoons water (or other liquid) I have done this completely egg free and they still turned out great. Stir together until thick and gelatinous)

2 Tbs almond meal (can also use buckwheat, rice or chickpea flour)

70g/ 1 Cup Raw Cacao (this is THE BEST I have ever tasted!) ,

2 tsp baking powder (Aluminium free).

You can then add more nuts, coconut or chocolate chips to the mix but I like to keep them plain

Heat oven to 180C and grease a tray bake pan. Roughly chop chocolate, and put in food processor with cooked beetroot, coconut oil and vanilla. Whizz until mixture is smooth. In another bowl, beat  sugar, eggs and salt until foamy and thick. Fold in beetroot mixture. Sift in Almond meal/flour, cacao and baking powder; gently fold. Stir through optional extras. Pour into tray bake or use a silicon mini muffin tin and cook for 20mins. Cool completely in tin then cut into squares. This can easily be a cake, just don’t cut into squares! It is quite moist as a cooked cake so store in the fridge. I dont think it needs a frosting but if you want one I like this;

My fave raw frosting from The Rawtarian…

1 cup dates

1/4 cup raw cacao (cocoa) powder

1/4 cup cold-pressed coconut oil (also known as coconut butter)

3/4 cup water (or a tiny bit more if needed – try to keep at 3/4 cup or so though)

Place all ingredients in a high-speed blender. If possible, let them sit in there for a few minutes to soften the dates a little bit. Blend all ingredients in your high-speed blender. The ingredients can be a little finicky to blend, so start at a slow speed and increase speed slowly. Keep blending for a very long time to get a velvety consistency. This is one of those recipes that really makes use of the power of a high-speed blender. If you feel that the blades are just spinning but aren’t actually moving all of the icing around, turn the blender off and make an air pocket down the side of the blender with a spatula to expose the blades. Remove the spatula, replace the lid, and start blending slowly again.You’ll know it’s ready if there are no bits of dates and all you can taste is velvety chocolate goodness.

(http://www.therawtarian.com/raw-chocolate-icing)

 

As an alternative, my friend Siobhan has kindly shared her family favourite black bean brownies for when beetroot is not in season!

Siobhan’s Black bean Brownies:

1/2 cup of blended black beans (black beans and water blended to a gluggy consistency)
1tbsp oil
1 c sugar (I usually only do half though as the banana adds sweetness)

1tsp vanilla

1/2 large banana, mashed
1tbsp chia seeds, hydrated
1/2c flour (I use mostly oat with a bit of coconut and quinoa)
1/3c cocoa powder
1/4tsp baking powder
1/4tsp xantham gum
1/4tsp saltPreheat oven to 175C. Grease pan.

In a medium bowl mix bean mixture, sugar, vanilla, mashed banana and chia seeds. In another bowl combine dry ingredients. Gradually stir dry ingredients into wet, until well blended.
Bake for 20-25mins or until brownie starts to pull away from edges of pan.
Let cool then cut into squares.

 

Enjoy and let me know how they go