Black Bean Brownies

Have I lost you already? I hope not. Stick with me!

The recipe: http://www.skinnytaste.com/amazing-flour-less-brownies/

Gina at Skinnytaste is my soul mate. She's wonderful. Her recipes are wonderful and tasty. But I saw this one and stopped in my tracks...you are telling me I can make chewy brownies with black beans. Anything with black beans and balsamic vinegar and it turns out sweet has me questioning everything I know. My first thoughts are "You must be out of your God-damned mind" because my mind runs through Hamilton lyrics. Anyone else? Just me? Moving on...My second thought was I have got to try this and I'm going to test them on my husband without telling him what they are made from and see what he says. A true blind taste test.

But first the recipe: her recipe is straight forward and simple to follow. I did two things different because of what I had on hand, and an appliance malfunction. First: the recipe calls for one can of black beans. WELL I don't keep cans of beans anymore because of an AMAZING invention called the Instant Pot...we can do a whole blog post on that later...BUT in just 25 minutes I can go from dried beans to ready to use beans no soaking involved. Through testing I've determined that 3/4 cup of dried beans once cooked equals about one 15 oz can of beans. SO I put 3/4 c of dried beans and 2 cups of water, cooked it on manual for 25 minutes. Once they were done I released the pressure opened the instant pot and drained and rinsed them and they were ready to go for the recipe. Second: the recipe calls to blend the ingredients in the blender which is fine and all, but I put the ingredients in, clicked it on and NOTHING. My blender has decided not to work. My solution was to throw it all in the food processor, which worked fairly well.

I also have a love hate relationship with putting parchment paper in pans. It's nice if you want to make a nice presentation of them, but if you are going to just dig in by yourself or your family, just oiling your pan should be just fine.

AND NOW for the taste test. When my hubby got home this afternoon for lunch he goes oh you are making brownies you are the best, followed by can I have one? SO after they were finished baking and partially cooled, I cut him a small piece. He knows they are brownies. They look like brownies, they smell like brownies BUT the big question is: do they taste like brownies? I gave him a small brownie and the first thing out of his mouth was: "I'm going to get ice cream on my way home from work." When I asked him if he tasted anything different about them and his response was: "I know they aren't your normal brownie recipe, so it seems like something is different but I don't know what." I told him they were made with black beans and he said he would have never guessed.

My overall opinion is that these brownies are a great flour-less substitute and semi healthy for a dessert. Don't be fooled there is sugar and chocolate in these so they aren't like SUPER healthy but it's gotta be better than some desserts right? I would make these again for sure!

Try them out and tell me your thoughts!

xoxo

Lyndsey

#recipes #desserts