Chocolate Bean Brownies

Photo Courtesy of Brad Lovejoy

Your eyes are not deceiving you. The recipe I chose for my last culinary experiment this week is Chocolate Bean Brownies and yes, by beans, I mean regular black beans and white beans. I made this choice out of sheer curiosity. My creativity level was less than desirable this week so my friend, Megan, sent me a link to the recipe. She had not yet prepared it so she thought that I might like to give it a whirl. Once I read the ingredients, I knew I had to try it; just to see what would happen. Not only have I never heard of brownies that incorporate beans, I have never substituted Agave Nectar for sugar while baking. I purchased a bottle of organic Agave Nectar a few months ago at PCC that I had not yet used. I have been curious as to whether or not it has a discernible flavor and this recipe provided me with the perfect opportunity to find out.

So how did it go? I am sorry to report that this recipe did not fare well. The texture was really strange. I mashed the beans to a pulp, as the recipe requested, but I could still feel the bean texture on my tongue with each bite. I baked the brownies at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. They were mushy so I put them back in the oven for an additional 10 minutes. The brownies were still a strange texture so I put them in for another 5 minutes. It ends up that the consistency is just fairly mushy in general. No amount of extra baking was going to help the cause. My final observation is that the agave nectar does indeed have a unique and discernible flavor. I don't completely dislike the flavor but it left an aftertaste in my mouth. As for Brad and Olivia? Let's just say that we have made an executive decision to stick with standard brownies. Our family prefers brownies when they are dense and as chocolaty as possible. The bean brownie recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

2 cans of black beans and/or white beans; drained, rinsed and mashed to a pulp (I used one can of each)

3/4 cup Agave Nectar or stevia powder

4 eggs, beaten to a light froth

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract or essence

3 Tbsp cocoa powder with 1/2 cup butter; make paste

2 Tbsp finely ground Linseed/almond meal, flaxseed or nuts/seeds (I used ground flaxseed)

Mix pulpy beans with Agave Nectar or stevia powder. Add ground meal, nuts or seeds and baking powder. Add cocoa powder-butter paste. Lastly, add frothy eggs and whisk all ingredients together. Place in lined baking pan and bake on medium heat for 30 to 40 minutes. (I lined my pan with parchment paper and guessed that 350 degrees was medium heat). Leave in pan to cool and then slice.

This was a fun experiment but not a recipe that I can recommend. The texture is strange and the flavor is light on chocolate while leaving an aftertaste. To look on the bright side, the recipe is both gluten-free and sugar-free when stevia is used as the sweetener.