Again, if you have read earlier posts on this subject you will understand where I am coming from, with hesitation I bring to you ‘Sugar Free’ brownies, I use the word hesitation as I have explained before there are two camps on this subject, those that are nearly completely sugar free and do not use honey, maple syrup, etc and then there those that do.
I want to be completely sugar free, I would like to give up using honey and maple syrup, but while I am easing myself gently into this and still researching great recipes that replace all my favourite treats without feeling deprived I will continue to use them. I feel that for now, for myself and for my family any healthy substitutes are better than not making any changes at all.
These brownies are so out of this world, they are so rich, so chocolatey and have yummy gooey centres that you could also serve as a delicious dessert. I would serve them at the end of a meal with an espresso, the rich chocolate with fresh coffee would be my idea of heaven. Also please feel free to add nuts, but I have friends that have children with allergies and a few of our household prefer them nut free. Personally, I love them with nuts 😉
So the low down on how these so called sugar free, good for you brownies went down with all that tried them… many thought I was joking that they were sugar free, everyone loved them, to the point that they claimed they were the best brownies that they had ever had, which surprised me as they are slightly different in texture, but hey, no one noticed and now this will be the recipe that I bake time and time again when asked to bake brownies. What they don’t know, won’t hurt them and this case will actually being doing them good.
Its our little secret.
Buon appetito
MAKES ABOUT 15 SQUARES
125g dark chocolate (100 per cent cocoa or the nearest you can find)
100ml milk
100g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the tin
175g honey
150g maple syrup
seeds scraped from ½ split vanilla pod
50g cocoa powder, sieved (I used Creative Nature Organic Cacao Powder)
3 organic eggs
150g wholemeal spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
Preheat the oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5.
Grease a 30cm x 20cm brownie tin and line it with baking parchment. Leave the paper sticking up at the sides to make it easier to lift the brownie out when it’s cooked.
Put the chocolate, milk, butter, honey, maple syrup and vanilla seeds in a saucepan. Warm over a very gentle heat, stirring regularly, until everything has melted and you have a rich, glossy-looking batter. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the cocoa powder.
Allow the mixture to cool for a couple of minutes, then beat in the eggs. Finally, add the flour and baking powder. The mixture at this point will look grainier than usual because of the texture of the flour.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake it in the oven for about 15 minutes until it is just set in the middle but still nice and gooey. Remove the tin from the oven and use the baking paper to help you slide the whole brownie on to a cooling rack as soon as possible so it doesn’t continue to cook. Cut into squares when cool.
Note : I found that trying to remove the brownies straights away resulted in them cracking, so I just left mine to cool completely in the tin, on a wire rack, until completely cooled and they were fine, still nice and gooey in the middle.
Taken from Davina McCalls new book 5 weeks to sugar free.
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