Healthy Brownie

 So here comes a recipe that has saved me on my journey to figuring all this out. Healthy Brownies. Yes you heard me. HEALTHY! I might go in later and change this recipe further, as I am still figuring out how to best make it. But It is certainly good enough to quench any chocolate craving you might have. The only problem?! you have to limit your intake if you are trying to eat less than 5 g of saturated fat a day. DARN! I figured out that on one batch of these there is a total of 20 g of Saturated fat, so if you divide it into 20 pieces there is 1 g in each piece. Eating one of these now and then to help with that craving is perfect, and it is healthy in many ways.


 You will need a food processor for this one... trust me.. a smoothie maker will not suffice.... not speaking from experience at all... really! Adn since I don't have one, I had to borrow my sister-in-laws (Thank you Linda)! 

You know when you borrow something, something ALWAYS goes wrong?! Well this time was no exception. I was preparing to return it when I realized that a main part was missing. It was gone. Nowhere to be found. spent 2 hours tearing the kitchen apart only to come to the conclusion that it was hopeless. In one of those irrational freakouts I searched online for spare parts and ordered one. Then OF COURSE 5 min later I glance down while packing for our trip to England (yupp this was the night before the flights) and see a white fleck between the couches... and there it was! first thought... those cheeky kids!!!! 

 
Telling my sister-in-law about the incident was probably the best bit though, she laughed her but off as did I. something that was so frustrating and annoying at the time ended up a moment to laugh about :-)!!!

Ok so the recipe...


Healthy Brownies

- 150 g walnuts
- 150 g almonds
- 60 g raw cocoa powder
- Date syrup and agave syrup (will explain further about this in the description)
- Optional instead of the syrups is to use fresh dates this makes them completely raw
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla powder
- 100 g roughly chopped almonds for texture

Add walnuts and almonds in the food processor to make a fine "flour". Add the cocoa powder, salt and vanilla powder/paste and mix again to incorporate.  At this point I used date syrup instead of dates which many raw brownie recipes ask for. Date syrup is perfect to have in your store cupboard as it is 100% boiled and pressed dates. I also used agave syrup because of it's sweetness. Date syrup is great mainly because of it not being so intensely sweet, but with such strong cocoa taste having a little bit of extra sweetness made it perfect in my taste-buds. So I added enough date syrup for it to just come together in the blender, then I used the rest agave syrup. I wish I had a perfect amount for you, but it is completely up to your own taste-buds. Mine require a bit of extra sweetness :-). Then pour into a bowl and add the roughly chopped nuts. I like mine almost whole, but once again this is to what you yourself prefer. Pour into your prepared tins. I used 2 different sizes as I don't have very many tins. But you could also use cupcake molds or one large tray and then cut them into bars. press down firmly, then chill in the fridge for at least an hour. I then sprinkled them with cinnamon. but you could use cocoa or if you aren't on my strict diet you could roll them into balls and then roll them in coconut flakes... yum!

Some other variations:
- using orange extract as well as the vanilla... yuuuuum!
- or almond extract for that extra almondy taste.
- I have also found chocolate essence that I think I am going to try some time as it would reduce the saturated fat content. 
- Lemon extract
- Mint extract, or making little mint pieces somehow... (going to figure out how for you and get abck to you)
- in sweden we have something called "arrak" which is basically a punch extract. this could also be useful in some way... hm.... 
- If you want to make your bars bigger, so that you can eat more of them, you can add things like puffed rice in them. This gives a bit of a different texture as well. 

 

Well the possibilities are endless. If you want to decrease the saturated fat even more you can replace the walnuts with almonds. Walnuts have a little more sat fat that almonds.

Good luck!
-Josefine