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 25-40 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.
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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!
Grace says
Elana,
I bought your book “Paleo Cooking” a few years ago and always find the chapter “The Paleo Pantry” helpful. Can you explain why you chose to use cacao instead of cocoa powder in this recipe? I’ve not experienced with cacao powder before and appreciate it if you can share why/when you would choose one over another. More importantly, how different do they taste?Thank you!
Elana says
Grace, thanks for your comment and I’m so glad to hear you are enjoying my book! They are virtually the same thing and either will work in this recipe :-)
Suzanne Martinez says
Elena why is there such a speak in cooking time? I’ve made these before and failed, but if like to try again. Please advise.
Elana says
Suzanne, happy to help. Please give a bit more description as to what the specific issue was :-)
carl says
Hi there-
Want to make these but allergic to egg, can I sub anything for them?
Elana says
Carl, thanks for your comment, here’s a link to my Egg-Free Recipes page for you:
https://elanaspantry.com/egg-free-diet/
Enjoy!
Elana
Karen Roessler says
Elana, my brownies rise so beautiful and collapse when out of the oven! Doesn’t always happen, any suggestions. They are so delicious! Thanks, appreciate your input!
Elana says
Karen, happy to help! First step might be to get an over thermometer to see if the oven is baking at the same temperature consistently. Keep me posted and we’ll get those brownies to be perfect every time.
Karen says
Temperature is accurate! Still completely collapse when taken out of the oven! Rise above the pan while baking and then drop? Another suggestion?
Elana says
Karen, are you using the brands that are called for in the recipe? That can make all the difference :-)
Chris Crane says
Elena,
I’ve made these a number of times. Half of the time they look great, the other half of the time they are clumpy and unappealing looking. They taste fine, but don’t look great. Not sure why this is happening. Haven’t really subbed anything. I thought using the mixer caused the problem. But then I just made them by hand mixing and had the same problem. I’m mystified. Any ideas?
thanks,
Chris
Elana says
Chris, thanks for your comment! Trying to reverse engineer this issue –can you elaborate when you say you haven’t really subbed anything –thanks!
Andrea says
Would this recipe work with sunbutter to make it nut free so that I could take it to my daughter’s daycare? I know you also have a sunbutter brownie recipe but J love this one so much that I am hoping to be able to use it still!
Elana says
Andrea, I haven’t tried that so not sure. Here’s a link to my Brownie Recipes page for you:
https://elanaspantry.com/brownie-recipes/
And here’s a link to my Nut-Free Recipes page for you as well:
https://elanaspantry.com/nut-free-diet/
Let me know what you end up doing!
Elana
Ann says
Hi Elana,
I just made these brownies and they are so rich and delicious! Thank you!
On another note, did you ever try neural retraining to address any of your health issues? I read about it on an online group for someone who had many mold issues and she is now able to eat many foods she had reactions to in the past.
Thanks for all your great info and recipes!
Ann
Elana says
Ann, so glad to hear you are enjoying these brownies and that they are rich and delicious! Yes, neural retraining is fantastic :-)
Joanne Koehler says
Hello! I am so excited that I found your blog! I want to try this but I do have a question. My husband is allergic to almonds, can I sub peanut butter? Would the results be the same?
Thank you!
Elana says
Joanne, I haven’t tried that so not sure, I think it’s worth a shot. If you do experiment let me know how it goes :-)
Lior says
Hi Elana, I think I might have wrote here in the past about how good these are, but I recently made a change (by my aunt’s request, as almond butter in Israel is extremely expensive) and gave a try for changing up the almond butter with tahini.
I want to say it came out pretty good, kind of like chocolate halva in a brownie form. It does need to be tweaked a bit next time, just because of the flavor differences, but the recipe is same as yours at the moment, aside from the almond butter/tahini change.
Thanks again, Lior
Elana says
Thanks Lior! Greeting to you in Israel –I lived in Jerusalem in 1988 and it was amazing :-)
Angie says
I absolutely love this recipe. I’ve been making these for a while now. I bake them in mini-muffin tins. Half a batch makes 36 bite size brownies. I only bake them for approx 15 min and they come out perfectly moist and delicious.
Elana says
Angie, thanks for letting me know you absolutely love this recipe!