Black Bean Brownies

Still trying to live a *vaguely* sugar - free life but don't want to let baking get pushed to one side. Been seeing black bean brownies popping up everywhere recently and as they're refined sugar free I decided it was my turn to give them a go.

I found this recipe through the Minimalist Baker website but adapted it slightly to make a few more brownies. It's such a simple recipe - literally just chuck everything into a food processor, blitz, pour into a tin and bake for 20 - 25 minutes! The perfect bake for a chocolatey fix whilst being *relatively* healthy still.

The brownies are a slightly strange texture - fudgey in the middle but also slightly crumbly. They'd be great served warm with some ice cream because of their dark chocolate taste.

Ingredients; 

• 1x 400g tin black beans - drained and rinsed 
• 100g cocoa powder 
• 6tbsp flax meal combined with 15tbsp water 
• 4tbsp olive oil 
• 1tsp sea salt 
• 1tsp vanilla extract 
• 2tbsp maple syrup 
• 100g coconut sugar 
• 1tsp baking powder 
• 50g dates - finely chopped/blitzed 
• 50g chocolate chips 
• 50g walnuts - optional 

Method; 

1. Into a food processor add the flax meal mix, black beans, cocoa powder, oil, salt, vanilla, maple syrup, sugar and baking powder. Blitz until all combined and black beans fully chopped up. I had to split my mixture into 2 to get everything to blend properly. 
2. Stir through the dates and walnuts if using. 
3. Pour into a lined baking tin or into 12 muffin cases - I used a tin approx. 25x20cm. 
4. Sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the top of the mixture. 
5. Place in the preheated oven (180c) for 20 minutes and then check - mine took about 23 minutes. It will still be gooey in the middle and soft to touch. 
6. Leave to cool and then slice into bite sized pieces and enjoy!