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!
Kiki says
This is my first time on your website and I really like it. I was just wondering about one thing. You use celtic sea salt a lot. Is that necessary or is that because you prefer it to ‘normal’ salt? Can the sea salt be substituted with normal salt?
Thanks in advance!
Kiki
elana says
diane300 -So glad you liked them, these are a fave in my house :-)
Karen -We make these weekly over here (even my children bake them) and we haven’t encountered this problem. I would try the regular recipe without the substitutions, it works without the burning problems you mention in your comment. Good luck and let me know how it goes!
Karen says
I made these yesterday for a Mother’s day cookout. My almond butter was unsalted so I upped the salt to 1 tsp. I cut the sweetener back to 1 cup, using about half a c. agave with a quarter c. each of brown rice syrup and yacon syrup. My chips were Sunspire grain-sweetened.
The only problem I had was the brownies became well-done around the edges of the pan(after 40 min at 325) but they were definitely too underdone in the middle, so I could only serve the outside edge pieces to my company.
The edge pieces were wonderful in taste, seeming to lose the almond butter flavor so you could not tell what the base was – not so with the underdone center.
Would using another type of pan besides pyrex make a difference in the end baking result?
diane300 says
I've just started to experiment with baking gluten free, and these brownies were my first experiment. They are amazing! I can't believe how almond butter turns out so light! They were chocolaty and not too sweet – I loved them!
Thanks for the recipes! I found your site last week, and there's so many things I want to try!
elana says
Sara -Thanks for your comment. According to my rabbi, baking soda is kosher for passover as it is not chametz. I think you can find this online too. Anyway, I’m glad you all enjoyed the brownies!
Jess -LOVE the idea of using cocoa nibs instead of chocolate chips! Great and thanks for sharing :-)
Jill -What a fabulous substitution, I bet they were amazing with peanut butter! Yum.
Jill says
These brownies are fantastic! They are a nice treat for my daughter who has a dairy sensitivity! I have made them twice and everyone has loved them. The second time I made them with organic peanut butter as I didn’t have any almond butter on hand, and the substitution worked out beautifully.
Jess says
Nice recipe, thanks for sharing! I think I overbaked mine a bit as they were a bit dry but that’s also personal preference as my guests loved them. Great flavor and texture – like real brownies! I used cocoa nibs instead of chocolate chips (no refined sugar) and they added a great crunch.
Sara says
I wanted to thank you again, Elana, for all your wonderful work. I just served my family a late Passover dinner, with your brownies, carrot cake and sesame cookies to top it off. They were all absolutely amazed that Passover sweets could actually taste great. (Though I was told by a cousin that technically baking soda is not supposed to be used, as it is a leavening agent… no one seemed to care.) Anyway, just thanks. And thank you for everything you believe in, and everything you share. You are inspiring.
~M says
Re: baking powder on Pesach. Gefen makes a Kosher-for-Passover baking powder using potato starch instead of cornstarch…but this is one of those things that you should ask your Rabbi about.
elana says
Sara -Will keep for at least 3 days…if they last that long (and aren’t eaten first)!
Magda says
Sara,
Yes, they will keep. They probably lasted as long as almost a week. I didn’t refrigerate them, either.