Dark Chocolate Fudge-Almond Brownies & Giveaway

Dark Chocolate Fudge-Almond Brownies & Giveaway

Giveaway series continues this week with another decadently delicious, yet equally nutritious recipe.  Last week my son chose to develop a recipe for Chocolate Cake.  Adapting King Arthur Flour’s, Chocolate Zucchini Cake from their Whole Grain Baking cookbook was fun and rewarding when we discovered we could up the nutrition ante and the kids would STILL want to lick the spoon.

This week I let my other son choose the recipe.  His choice?  Brownies.

He didn’t have to ask me twice.

 

 

 

 

 

These perfectly moist and fudgy Brownies have been packed with protein and whole grain.  Because we don’t have any nut allergies in our house, I like to incorporate nuts into my baking to add protein.  My kids however, would rather I didn’t.  So when developing this brownie recipe, I decided to incorporate the nuts via almond meal.  One-half a cup of almond meal can add up to 9 grams of protein to the recipe.  Can’t have nuts?  No problem, this recipe can also be made without the almond meal (see below).

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Dark Chocolate Fudge-Almond Brownies

(adapted from King Arthur Flour)


Ingredients:

  • 1/2 C (1 stick) butter
  • 1 C raw (turbinado) sugar
  • 1/2 C applesauce
  • 3/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 C whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 C almond meal (for nut allergies, simply omit the almond meal and use a full 1 1/2 C whole wheat flour)
  • 2 C dark chocolate chips (preferably 62% cacao or higher)

Directions:

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly butter a 9″x9″ square baking pan.
  • Melt the butter in a medium saucepan.  Whisk in sugar and bring back to a simmer.  When mixture is simmering, add applesauce and cook for an additional minute, whisking until smooth.  Turn off heat.
  • Whisk in cocoa powder, baking powder, sea salt and vanilla.  Cool slightly.
  • When mixture has cooled to a luke-warm, stir in eggs until well incorporated.
  • Stir in flour and almond meal.
  • Mix in chocolate chips and pour into prepared baking pan.
  • Bake for 30 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out with crumbs but not wet batter.
  • Remove to a wire rack to cool.

Lower Sugar & Fat Version: Reduce the butter to 1/4 C and increase the applesauce to 3/4 C.  Also reduce the sugar to 1/2 C and the dark chocolate chips to 1 C.  The results are equally delicious, yet slightly more dense in consistency and a bit less sweet and fudgy in flavor.

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We have one more week until we draw the winner of our King Arthur Flour GIVEAWAY!  Don’t miss your opportunity to enter by leaving your comment on last week’s Chocolate Cake & Giveaway post.  Contest ends Saturday February 4th.  Until next week…


This Post Has 7 Comments

  1. Deena

    I love the idea of adding almond meal to a brownie recipe!

  2. kimgerber

    That’s so great, Candy! Thank you for your generous comment and blog post!

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