One of my favorite readers, Courtney, requested this brownie recipe in a comment last week.
Here is what she said, “Can we have another VOTE?? Every post I am hopeful that I might open it up to find your recipe for scrumptious dark chocolate brownies… I am NEVER disappointed by your posts, but I am still hopeful that I may experience this recipe in the future…”
Now that is just too cute. How could I say no to this sweet request? Courtney lives in Tennessee and I was fortunate enough to meet her at one of my cooking classes here in Boulder, Colorado. She has a great website with all kinds of interesting natural products on it.
Furthermore, this is my older son’s favorite treat. Whenever I ask him what he would like me to bake for him, he says, “brownies.” He loves packing these higher-protein treats in his lunch for dessert.
So, there you have it, everyone! Brownies.
Brownies
Ingredients
- 1 16 ounce jar creamy roasted almond butter
- 2 large eggs
- 1¼ cups honey
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup cacao powder
- ½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a large bowl, blend almond butter until smooth with a hand blender
- Blend in eggs, then blend in honey and vanilla
- Blend in cacao, salt and baking soda, then fold in chocolate chips
- Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking dish
- Pour batter into dish
- Bake at 325°F for 30-40 minutes
Last spring, I discovered this great Peanut Butter Bar recipe from celiacchicks.com which gave me the idea to make treats out of nut butters. When I coached my son’s little league team, I brought either these nourishing brownies, or Almond Butter Blondies to just about every baseball game.
I recently discovered a fun website called Flavorista.com. Low and behold, I checked it out this morning and saw a fantastic write up on gluten-free by the site’s author, Barr. What I liked best about her take on this timely topic, is that she is one of the few mainstream chefs to offer an “outsider’s” perspective on the world of gluten-free. Very refreshing, witty and informative. Thanks Barr!
chasmyn says
I made these and they’re delicious! I wonder if you could amend for future folks NOT to use the hand blender to blend beyond JUST the almond butter. Switch to a food processor or something – I blew out the motor on my hand blender with this recipe because I was using it the whole time for all the blending. Now I’ve got to buy a new one.
I am enjoying your recipes – my friend got your book, she made the lemon bars for a party last night, and I made these and am going to add chocolate frosting to them. So good!
Shellie says
Ditto for my handheld blender! Ah, well. Live and learn! I used chocolate peanut butter (had it in the pantry) to great success. Thanks for the recipe!
Brandi says
Hi Elana!
As everyone…I love your recipes! I wanted to post because my husband has tree nut allergies, so I use fresh ground peanut butter from my local health food store for these. I keep everything else the same..using chopped up Dagoba bars for the chocolate. We like them fudgy, so I cut the bake time by a bit. They are great! Thanks for the recipe!
Licia Martin says
Thanks for this great recipe. I’m on SCD, so I substituted honey for the agave nectar, cocoa butter for the chocolate chips, used cashew butter instead of almond butter (as I have no shortage of almonds in my life), and I left out the cocoa powder.
What you’ve neglected to mention in your recipe is how to NOT eat so many of these rich golden nuggets that you spend the night moaning, “Ooh, I really shouldn’t have eaten those last few pieces”. My 2 year old is now crying because I will not give her a piece before dinner (“I need more cakey Mama”). These brownies are unfairly, diabolically good. And did I mention rich?
Amy says
I cannot wait to try these for my family! It is too bad that I can’t make them for school or other children’s events… in most places in Ontario, anything for children is nut-free due to peanut allergies. Oh well, we can still enjoy at home! :)
Arwen says
I just started a diet (the GenoType Diet by Dr. D’Adamo) that not only tells me to avoid most forms of wheat, but requires me to stay away from vanilla for 3-6 months. Any ideas on how to get around the vanilla restriction with regards to brownie, cookie, etc. recipes besides just eliminating it? I hate to sacrifice flavor. Thanks for your work!
Roo says
Wow! These were excellent. Thank you for this great recipe.
WendyZ says
These brownies ROCK! I made several changes to the recipe, but they still turned out SO yum-o! I think next time I might try to reduce some of the sweetness, though.
Even my husband like these. I tried a different nut butter since he’s not a fan of the texture of some other GF recipes that use almond butter, meal, or flour. (I think since almonds are more dense than most other nuts, they make baked goods too gritty for HIS taste.)
Here’s how I changed up the recipe:
* Used unsalted cashew butter instead of almond butter.
* Used plain sea salt. I added 1/4 tsp more since my cashew butter was unsalted.
* Replaced the agave with a mixture of maple syrup, honey, and brown rice syrup.
* Used 1.5 ounces of 88% chocolate in bar form (broken into pieces) instead of the cup of choco-drops. This was plenty “chocolately” for us!
* Baked it for 33 minutes in a slightly larger ceramic dish. I greased it with virgin coconut oil–wish I had used something else due to the strong coconut taste. (I like coconut but didn’t think the amount used to grease the pan would taste so strong.)
Instead of a hand mixer, I used my stand mixer with great results–just scraped down the bowl a few extra times.
Elana, I’m a recent reader of your blog, and this is only the second recipe of yours that I have tried. Thanks!!! These were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!
4kiddos says
I adapted these so my son could eat them and they still came out wonderful, thank Elana!
I used much less agave and added an extra egg for the wetness. I also used peanut butter because I had it on hand.
They were awesome! The whole family loved them, even my gluten loving husband:)
Amanda says
These brownies are AMAZING!!! We enjoyed them with some coconut ice-cream tonight! I received your almond flour cookbook as a gift for Christmas and was thrilled to read you have a website as well! It’s hard to find good gluten-free recipes that are easy and delicious. Not only am I gluten-free but my boyfriend and I also follow a “paleo” diet (inspired by my brother). So, it’s wonderful that you use almond flour and agave and other ingredients that are paleo-friendly! Thanks so much for your hard work, I’m so happy to get to cook and bake and be healthy too! :)
Melissa says
I made these last night, I forgot the baking soda woops! i used carob chips instead too. the still came up pretty yummy especially when you microwave them for a bit.
wondering though, i would like to use less agave next time. could coconut oil work in this too?