The Cooking Chemist: Black bean, Lentil and Beetroot brownies

This week I have been trying out a few new recipes. The recipes have been really delicious but they don't use whole cans of bean/lentils etc. This really annoys me because I am then left over with a bunch of food that I wouldn't really freeze and that I have no plans for for next week. So I decided to try and make some brownies to use all these ingredients up. I also had some left over roasted beetroots (that I had picked from our garden and roasted) so I thought I would add them in as I have made chocolate beetroot cake before and it was yummy! As a result, this recipe uses weird amounts of beans and lentils (ie. not full can amounts) so feel free to try this with a full can of black beans instead of a mixture of lentils and beans.

This recipe is very easy to prepare (just blend, fold, bake) and results in some dense brownies that are not too sweet and are quite rich in chocolate flavour.

Black bean, lentil and beetroot brownies

Ingredients

190 g black beans, well rinsed
130 g lentils, well rinsed (can omit these and add a whole can of black beans instead)
70 g roasted beetroot
80 g brown sugar (1/2 cup firmly packed) (if you are a sweet tooth, add 3/4 cup sugar or 120 g)
1/2 cup cocoa
2 eggs
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
10 g coconut oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup (110 g) roughly chopped walnuts, pecans or chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius (350 F).

2. Place black beans, lentils, beetroot, brown sugar, cocoa, eggs, vanilla extract, coconut oil apple cider vinegar, baking powder and baking soda in the bowl of a food processor and blend until smooth.

All of the ingredients ready to be blended.

3. Fold through the walnuts.

Folding through the walnuts.

4. Grease a muffin tray and spoon the batter into the tray (this recipe made 12 large brownies and 6 mini brownies). Spread the batter out unless you want some rustic looking brownies like mine.