I have been experimenting with brownies a year ago since I started this blog, why brownies?
Well we all know the answer to that question! Simply because like everybody else on this planet I love brownies.
I mean come on!! Who doesn’t love and crave brownies every day?!
For that reason, I am in an ongoing research and experiment journey to make healthy brownies and I already pulled that with some older recipes like the energy brownies and the banana brownies.
These were good recipes don’t get me wrong but I noticed that whenever someone asks me about the recipe and I start counting the ingredients there was some explanation marks on some of those ingredients! These recipes were for people who like to explore more in food like me but not for everyone.
“Wait! What?! Where the hell I am going to find that?! UMMM forget about it! I think I’ll just stick with the traditional recipe I have!”
This is one of many reactions I got, and I didn’t want that to happen.
Okay, I know if you want to eat healthy there are some new healthy products you need to buy and have to throw some of your pantry products in trash, but I love to make recipes where ingredients are easy to find in any local supermarket especially in our countries over here, not spend one whole day searching for ingredients to make some healthy bites, this will make a lot of people give up before even starting and I that is not my goal.
My main goal with this blog, as I mentioned many times before, is having the luxury to eat what we love but in a healthy, EASY and AFFORDABLE way.
Eating healthy does not have to be over expensive or hard to make, it needs to be affordable and doable by everyone, every age, social class or country.
That’s what I worked hard for with my recipes. I put myself in the shoes of many housewives with limited budgets to cook with.
Yes! Of course it is very easy to make healthy brownies if I buy “organic” “healthy” stuff with 50$ I can do some brownies that are sugar free and healthy, but how many of us can afford making a 50$ worth brownies every day for our kids?! Well not everyone can afford that on daily basis.
That’s why I wanted to create a recipe easy enough that while reading it you open your pantry or fridge and you find most of the ingredients you need or yet better you find it all in there!
I try to use fresh, seasonal, healthy and natural ingredients that can be found in any ordinary house but used in a different way maybe, and lucky for us there are so many ingredients in our Arabic traditional kitchens healthy and affordable, we don’t even know that because we are just used to cook it at a certain way. People around the world pay a lot of money to buy tahini, molasses, dates, hummus and many other ingredients that are found in every local house in our Arabic countries.
For today I am going to share with you the first version of an easy, healthy brownies bites that any housewife can manage to do easily.
I said version one because I attempt to make it even lighter with further experiment in the future, but this first attempt was so good I couldn’t resist the urge to share it with you.
Guys it so sweet, fudgy and delicious. This time I experimented with my brother in law, he is so picky and he never tastes anything I cook! Because as he said “I use weird ingredients he doesn’t like” without even tasting!
So I didn’t explain anything to him, I just offered him some brownies, and he ate like 4 pieces with a big surprise on his face and he kept asking me “Anna! Are you sure this is healthy? It is not a prepacked brownies batter?!” and I made him guess what the ingredients are just by tasting and he didn’t even get any close, everyone just loved them and my husband ended up eating half of the tray! Not very healthy anymore! 😛 But I just enjoyed their reaction so much.
So to every mother who have picky kids who doesn’t love anything healthy and just lives on sweets, you got to try this brownies recipe. It is easy, healthy, free of processed food and the most important thing it’s affordable!
Chickpea brownies 001:
Serve 16 pieces
Ingredients:
- 1 ¾ cup of cooked chickpeas (400g approx.)*
- 1/3 cup raw cocoa powder
- 2/3 cup organic brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp. coconut milk.
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. grounded coffee
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- ½ cup dark chocolate chips.*
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 180 C◦ and wrap a 20 x 20 cm pan with some parchment paper and set aside.
- In a food processor, blend until smooth the chickpeas.
- add the other ingredients except for the chocolate chips
- Blend until you have a smooth a little bit runny batter.
- Add the chocolate chips and fold it a little bit with the spatula till it mixes with the batter.
- Pour the batter into the pan and spread it evenly.
- Bake in the oven for 23 minutes. It can vary from oven to another just keep checking on it after the 20th minute had passed.
- To check if brownies are done, stick a wooden skewer or toothpick into the center, it should come out clean, if it comes out sticky a little bit but not runny it is also mean your brownies are baked.
- Let it sit at least 20 minutes before cutting and serving, your brownies will continue to set while it cools.
- Enjoy!
Notes:
*I usually by uncooked chickpeas and cook as much as I need by boiling them without salt for this dessert recipe that I won’t ruin the taste of the whole recipe, but you can buy the canned cooked ones they have a little bit of salt in it, but it won’t affect the recipe. I just prefer to use homemade one because it will be free of any additive or preservative substance.
*if you don’t find chocolate chips or happen to have a dark chocolate bar in your house, you can use it, just chop it into small chunks and you are good to go.