BBB...Black Bean Brownies

I went to visit sissy a few weeks ago and while we were there we had dinner with my aunt and cousins. Since this post Christmas and therefore during calorie counting festivities I offered to bring dessert to dinner at my aunt's so I could control the most dangerous part of the meal. In preparation for making the dessert I scoured the intertubes for ideas for tasty low calorie desserts that weren't fruit salad. I ended up making a sorbet that was just frozen pineapple, mango, and banana thrown into a food processor with a dash of lemon juice and refrozen. So...kind of fruit salad but blended up so I could pretend like it was more than that...

While scouring the google machine I discovered some interesting recipes. One of which was black bean brownies. The boy loves black beans so we decided to try the brownies. They did not disappoint!

I started with this recipe. I've recently discovered that apple sauce can replace oil/butter in almost any baking recipe and it really doesn't make a ton of difference in the overall product except the amount of calories! Here is the recipe I actually used...

• Baking Pam, for greasing pan
• 3/4 cup cooked black beans
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applsauce
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2/3 cup baking stevia (the zero cal stuff)
• 1 teaspoon instant coffee or espresso
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, divided
• 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

The end result is a brownie that is only 105 calories a serving (assuming 12 servings per pan). If you use real sugar instead of stevia the calorie per serving goes up to 145. If you use real sugar and oil instead of the apple sauce the calories go up to 205 calories per serving, which I'm sure is still less than 1/12 of a pan of Ghiradelli Brownies (240 a serving). Since I view the black bean brownies as a low calorie replacement for the real thing I'd rather go all out with cutting out the calories. 

So we ate a few before we remembered to take a photo...

For a low calorie replacement for a brownie it really hits the spot! They were chocolatey, super moist, and full of protein! We had a hard time not eating the entire pan...

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