Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Black bean brownies, again

So, with the clearer head that comes from a good night's sleep, I'm ready to talk about the brownies.

They are, to be fair, worlds better than my first batch.  The use of actual sugar/flour helps that.

Worth noting: these brownies?  Sort of expensive.  It's a lot of cocoa, and 2 and 1/4 cups turns out to be like, half of a box of raw sugar.  Which I guess wasn't that expensive, but still.

The good:  super easy to make.  Pretty fast.

So fast.  You just mix the dry ingredients (there are a lot!)...

Puree the black beans...

Yum (not).

So you just mix the beans and dry ingredients and some water (I was pretty indiscriminate with how much I added, I just kept going til the stuff could actually be mixed), and done.  Except I went a little off the deep end, threw in a quarter cup of Kahlua, 2 T of vegetable oil (no added fat brownies just seem wrong) and 2 cups of not quite vegan chocolate chips.  Then into a pan, and bake.

So then they came out.  And they were better, but not great.  I think the problem is the whole wheat flour.  You can really taste it, and it's weird.  Like the moistness and texture are what I'd expect from a normal brownie, but the flour thing is just off.  Despite this, I went on a small brownie bender last night (I have my period and therefore a biological need for chocolate.  It's just a fact), eating a giant one on my own and another decent sized one at my boyfriend's place, where the addition of chocolate avocado mousse was an excellent one.  I have come back this morning and had a little more (it's my uterus's fault, not mine), and I still hate the whole wheat.  They have held up surprisingly well otherwise, as they no longer have the allure of "warm gooey brownie" but as cold brownie, they are still decent.  I might try this again with regular flour.  Then again, I might give up on this black bean nonsense and move on to vegan baking that does not attempt to be healthy.

Regardless, I'm done with brownies for awhile.  Chocolate chip cookies are next up for sure.  I have everything I need except for margarine, which I am really tempted to just steal from my roommate.  But I won't.  Probably.

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