Weird (but Delicious) Brownies (and NOT the Wacky Tobacky Kind).

I've heard about black bean brownies and I really wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Out of straight fear of eating black beans in my brownies, I delayed in this exploration. However, I finally decided to jump on the bandwagon and I must say this is a very interesting wagon indeed.

I did some research on the interweb and came across some rather odd recipes. Some were no fat, some were no flour, some were even no sugar! How dare they! I finally stumbled upon the recipe on the No Meat Athlete's website, and decided to give it a try. In true Dirty Vegan fashion, I had to put my own Naughty spin on it. I also made these gluten-free, which if you haven't noticed, I have been doing more of. I received requests from vegan and gluten-free readers who wanted to see more GF-friendly content. Needless to say, thank you NMA for giving me the recipe guideline! I only changed a couple of things anyway, so I totally give you the credit. Before your recipe, I wouldn't know the first thing about putting black beans into desserts.

These were delicious! The picture doesn't do them justice whatsoever.

Here is what I did:

• 1 1/2 cup all purpose gluten-free flour
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 1/4 cup vegan cane sugar
• 1 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 4 tsp instant coffee powder (not gonna lie, I just busted open a K-cup)
• 1 cup vegan chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup nuts (use whatever nuts you like - walnuts or hazelnuts seem perfect for this)
• 1 15oz can black beans, drained & rinsed then placed back into can and fill the can with water
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup water (additionally)

Preheat oven 350 degrees. Mix all dry ingredients (first 8 ingredients) in a large mixing bowl. Puree can of black beans with that new water you added to it. Mix puree with vanilla and that additional cup of water. Mix wet ingredients into bowl of dry ingredients. Grease a 9x13 inch pan and pour batter into it (batter will be watery, don't worry about it). Bake for about 30 minutes, carefully rotating pan a couple of times during baking. When your brownies are not watery or runny in the middle and they seem to be pulling away from the sides of the pan, they are done. Let cool and then cut into squares and enjoy! These retain heat very well, so when I enjoyed my brownie, I got nice oozy chocolate chips inside. Yum!

Thanks No Meat Athlete! I wouldn't have tried black bean brownies, like ever, if it weren't for your recipe. I'm glad I did, these were surprisingly fantastic!