July 29, 2016
This week I have been really busy with work, it’s our annual company function and so I’ve been worried about finding time to write a blog post! But I didn’t want to keep you waiting, and so here we are. I knew I needed to write something, and luckily I had enough time to try out a new recipe on the weekend that I thought I would share.
As you would know if you read my blog regularly, I love to bake. I love to especially bake things that have chocolate in them, or sugar, but preferably both. What I am not particularly good at is cooking things that are healthy. I don’t know what it is about cooking healthy, but I am not sure if I will ever be one of those people who are able to just whip up a batch of brownies that only use chickpea flour and applesauce for sweetener. It seems that every time I try to bake healthy things, they just don’t turn out well. I wish I could be more like one of those healthy people, but I just don’t see it fitting in with my life goals any time soon. I am just made for baking with chocolate and sugar; it is what brings me joy. And why deprive myself of that?
This point was reaffirmed for me last weekend when I decided to bake for a friend’s dinner. I decided that I would try and cook something healthy because I wanted to try something new, and I also had a tonne of left over bananas to utilise. So I decided to give a recipe a go for some brownies that I thought sounded tasty.
I figured what could possibly go wrong? The recipe was for banana bread brownies with chocolate chips, so it satisfied my requirement for baking to have either chocolate or sugar. And the resulting brownies were actually quite delicious, just not as sweet as I normally would like. But I figured what was the harm in taking them along, as when something is healthy you can eat twice as much, right?
Well I’ll be honest with you, by the time we got to dessert; we were about 4 bottles of Champagne in, so none of us were really feeling like anything sweet. So we had a lot leftover which I left at my friend’s house. The next morning she woke to find that her boyfriend had demolished the whole batch. But he had done this thinking that they were pancakes that I had made especially for his breakfast, and proceeded to try and heat up the said pancakes in the microwave and sandwich toaster. He was really pleased with my effort, which makes me happy that someone really enjoyed them. Something about the consistency because they had no flour or anything to make them super brownie like did make them quite flat and pancake like. But if I were to eat healthy pancakes, I would most definitely pick these ones! And food isn’t about labels, right? One should be able to enjoy food however they please! All I care about is that they were eaten, and turned out well, especially when you consider that they are really quite good for you in brownie terms.
- 1 ¼ cups of gluten free flour
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon of salt
- 1 ½ tablespoon of unsalted butter melted
- 2 large overripe bananas mashed
- 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- ½ cup of plain Greek yogurt
- 1 teaspoon of caster sugar
- 2 teaspoons of milk
- 3 tablespoons of dark chocolate chips
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Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (300 degrees Fahrenheit), and line a square baking tin with baking paper.
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In a medium sized bowl, mix together the butter, banana and cinnamon with a wooden spoon. Add the Greek yogurt and stir until no lumps remain, and then add the milk and sugar, stirring to combine.
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Incorporate into this the flour, baking powder and salt, and stir to completely combine, using a spatula to get any flour from the sides of the bowl. Fold in the chocolate chips until just incorporated.
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Spread the batter into the baking tin and bake for 20 minutes, or until the top is golden. Cool to room temperature before cutting into even pieces. For a fudgy texture, allow cooling for 3 hours before serving.
These ‘brownies’ were absolutely delicious, and the best part about them was that they are pretty healthy! I mean sure, you could substitute butter for coconut oil, sugar for stevia, but they are such low portions that I didn’t really see the need. These bad boys are gluten free, which means that they are a good option for your friends with intolerances. It also means you don’t need to feel guilty about eating the whole batch, or the remainder of the batch if you are my friend’s boyfriend.
I was a little worried when these brownies flattened after baking, but this made them really fudgy and delicious. And you really needed need much sweetener because the bananas in themselves really made the brownies sweet enough, if you are looking for a healthy alternative.
Until next time, happy eating
Ella xx
