These delicious baked goodies are a stupendous substitute for any sugary morning pastry or sweet afternoon treat!  Still filled with mouth-watering chocolate sensations, these brownies won’t overloaded your body with sugary crappy-crap.  The can of beans in this recipe helps to sustain energy and keep you moving forward, instead of giving you a short-lasting sugar rush, then a big-time sugar crash.  Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 can black beans, drained + rinsed

• ¼ cup coconut oil, melted

• 2 eggs — or flax eggs, or use an egg replacer

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 2 TB pure maple syrup

• ½ cup cane sugar — or coconut sugar

• ¼ cup cocoa powder

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 1 pinch salt

~optional~

• Walnuts — doing lots of nuts was splendid… gave some crunch to these soft brownies!

• Chocolate chips, as much as feels good

DIRECTIONS:

• Preheat oven to 350 F.

• Place black beans in a food processor or heavy-duty blender, and pulse until smooth.

• Add wet ingredients — eggs (or egg substitute), coconut oil, syrup, and vanilla — to blender and pulse again to mix it all together.

• Add sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt, pulse until smooth.

• Mix in chocolate chips + nuts, if desired.

• Grease up an 8×8 or 9×9 pan with coconut oil (side note: using a metal pan cooks brownies more evenly than a glass one, true story).

• Bake for 20-40 mins; until edges are harder — I know this is a wide spectrum, so try 20ish, and keep checking back.  I found that the coconut sugar option might need a longer oven time.

• Let cool for at least 20 mins before cutting and digging in!