B is for Brownies

An avocado chocolate smoothie wasn't enough.

Today's challenge has avocado. It has chocolate. It has chocolate chips. It does NOT have gluten.

And it has black beans.

Whaaaaa???

Here is the pin:

From Ambitious Kitchen

Do not for one minute believe that I chose this pin for the picture, because, if you ask me, it looks like a piece of a kid's mud pie.

I did choose it because it was (a) something completely challenge-worthy and (b) well, "B" and (c) I still had an avocado leftover from yesterday's avocado chocolate smoothie.

The writer of the recipe claimed these were the best brownies she had ever eaten and that she ate half a pan herself for supper. How could I resist such a challenge?

I rinsed and drained a can of black beans and put them in the food processor with the eggs, cocoa (regular, not Dutch process this time), avocado, brown sugar, baking soda and baking powder, salt, vanilla, and coconut oil. 

Conversation with my husband about the coconut oil:

Husband: Coconut oil? Where did you get coconut oil?
Me: I put it on my face every night. DO YOU KNOW ME AT ALL?
Husband: You put FACE CREAM in the brownies?!
Me: *slowly beats head against the wall*

It looked like this:

Then it looked like this:

And then like this:

And then I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but I did take one of me tasting the batter:

As you may be able to tell from this picture, the batter was not terrific. The texture was, well, texturey. And not very sweet, so I threw in a little more brown sugar before stirring in the chocolate chips.

When they were done, they looked like a less-shiny version of the picture of the batter in the pan. Not quite like regular brownies. They cut okay. They were certainly fudgy. And they looked way more like brownies than they did mud pies, so I put them on a plate and took them up to the high school and gave them to the kids there who were rehearsing for the spring musical. 

The report from the high schoolers were they were delicious. One boy even (reportedly) said they were the best brownies he had ever eaten. 

I did NOT tell them what the ingredients were.

My husband did not care much for them, but he knew they had black beans and avocado and face cream in them, so he was not a good judge. My daughter refused to try them.

The last taste tester was the College Boy. And he LOVED them, saying if I had told him they were some kind of truffle, he would believe it. Then I told him there were black beans and avocado in them, and he had trouble swallowing the last bite, saying he could feel the beans (he couldn't).

If you don't know what the ingredients are, they aren't bad. Very fudgy, in a non-traditional fudgy way.. They certainly have a lot of fiber in them. They are gluten-free, if you care about that kind of thing. Not as sweet as I would like. In spite of the fudginess, the texture is off. If you didn't have a food processor, I don't know how you'd get those beans mushed enought that there would not be chunks of beans in the batter,  and that would be beyond disgusting.

Here's what I say: if you want brownies, eat the damn brownies. Forget about trying to make them healthy.

Part of my dad's brownie mix collection. Now that
he's in charge of cooking, he bakes brownies for
himself a minimum of once a week....