Chocolate Banana Brownies (Nut-Free, Grain-free, Vegan, Sugar-Free)

Today is the day that Group C is supposed to post their recipes in the Secret Recipe Club. I’m usually in Group B. Every once in awhile there is a blogger that has to back out at the last minute and today was apparently that day. Angie who hosts Group C contacted me, and asked me if I wouldn’t mind filling in, I checked out the blog – found something pretty quickly and I was out the door.

I seriously am really lucky, because I literally live in a neighborhood that is right behind a huge grocery store. So any ingredients I need to make something, are less than a 10 minute round trip away. I headed out the door before waiting to see if Angie was going to tell me that someone else was going to do it. Mostly because I knew if I waited, it would be a longer wait. I walked through the store collecting ingredients and silently praying she hadn’t asked someone else to do it. I was relieved when I got back home and found that she hadn’t, and that I was the one.

Here is the awesome recipe – and side note, when you’re in a time crunch – don’t choose something that requires all this prep. LOL

Chocolate Banana Brownies
original recipe from The Mommy Bowl

2/3 cup (78 g) raw sunflower seeds
1/3 cup (50 g) raw pumpkin seeds
2/3 cup (102 g) seedless dates
1/3 cup (30 g) cocoa powder
1 small, very ripe banana (about 88 g)
1 T. flax seed
3 T. hot water
1 t. vanilla
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
I added 1/2 c. mini chocolate chips also

I’d like to take a moment, before I post the instructions to apologize that I didn’t take photos of all the steps. It was a time issue, more than anything. You all know I love posting photos with my recipes, so forgive me this time.

Onto the directions:

Preheat your oven to 350°. Spray oil an 8″ square pan and set aside. I cheated here a little, as I like using shortening to coat the edges of the pan, so that’s what I used.

In the bowl of a food processor, grind the sunflower and pumpkin seeds until you have a fairly fine powder. (This would probably work in a high speed blender, too. I don’t have one, though, so I can’t say for sure.) It did, I tried it.I did however have better luck with my mini grinder, it just took a little longer.

Add the dates and process until the dates are finely ground. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse until you have a thick and sticky batter. It’s super sticky, so prepare yourself, it sticks to everything. LOL

Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth top as much as you can. (It will be sticky.) Yes, yes it was, but I got it in there.

Bake for 18-24 minutes, until top is firm to the touch and edges are pulling away from pan slightly. (You won’t really see browning, unless you have a really good eye and look closely at the edges.) This is true, I just pulled it out at 18 minutes and checked it, stuck a knife in it, it still seemed a little sticky, so I stuck it back in for 3 more minutes. And it was done then.

Cool completely. Cut and serve. Makes about 9 brownies.

I couldn’t eat a whole one before I posted because they were still extremely hot, but I did taste a bite and it was actually super good. The consistency is different than that of a regular brownie, so that was different, but it was good. I’ll try and update this later this afternoon when the kids arrive home and tell ya what they think. She does mention smearing peanut butter on top, and I have to tell you, that is exactly what I am going to do – since we don’t have nut allergies here and since there isn’t any sugar in there.

Update: Kids were a mixed party on this one. Only one of the five said it was good. Another one liked it with peanut butter, but the other three (the picky three, as I refer to them) did not care for these. So mixed reviews. The hubs wouldn’t try them once he heard they were healthy – is that funny? He didn’t believe me that I didn’t put something “gross in them”.

Check out more of Group C’s Awesome Recipes!