- With all of the healthy eating and meal prep
that you guys have been doing,
I thought you deserved a sweet treat this week.
So I'm happy to share the recipe for my paleo brownies.
They are rich and chocolatey and fudgey and delicious,
soft and warm straight out of the oven,
but if you wanna get creative for Valentine's Day
which is in just a couple of days,
you could also add a scoop
of ice cream whether dairy or dairy-free
and a homemade strawberry sauce on top
and I will show you how to make that,
but I also wanna say a quick word on sweet treats
and desserts that are labeled paleo or gluten-free
or vegan and remind you that many times
these are still loaded with sugar
and not exactly healthy.
Occasional indulgences are definitely okay,
but I wanna make sure that we're not fooling ourselves
into thinking that some of these items
are healthier than what they are.
Alright, so with that disclaimer,
let me show you how to make these delicious paleo brownies.
Start by pre-heating your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
and then get all of your ingredients ready.
I know many of you in Europe
and other parts of the world don't have refrigerated eggs,
but for those of us in the U.S.
who do because of how our eggs are processed,
you wanna get your eggs out of the fridge
so that they can come to room temperature.
Add a half a cup of coconut oil
and one cup of chocolate chips to a bowl.
If you're not dairy-free, you could also use butter
or ghee instead of the coconut oil.
We want to melt these two items together
and you can do that either in a double boiler over the stove
or in a microwave oven.
If you do use a microwave,
just heat in 20 second increments
until the chocolate is mildly warm and melted, but not hot.
And make sure to give it a stir in between
each 20 second increment.
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You'll need an eight inch by eight inch square baking pan
for the brownies and I line mine with parchment paper
so it's easy to lift the brownies out.
Now a quick trick with the parchment paper
is to measure it about the width of your baking pan
and instead of using scissors to cut it to size,
just fold the sides in to get it to fit.
This keeps the edges of your brownies
all nice and straight rather than
crumpling the parchment paper into the pan.
In a large mixing bowl, crack three room temperature
eggs and add three quarters cup of coconut sugar.
You could also use a low carb granulated sugar
of your choice like monk fruit
if that's your preference.
To that we'll add a quarter cup of cacao powder
and one third cup of tapioca flour.
Because I want fudgey brownies and not cakey brownies,
I'm using only tapioca flour this time around
and not adding almond flour or coconut flour.
The secret ingredient in this recipe though
which you've seen me add before in my paleo chocolate cake
is espresso powder as
it really adds richness to the chocolate.
Lastly we'll add a half a teaspoon of salt
and one teaspoon of vanilla extract
and then blend it all together.
You do wanna start your hand mixer on the lowest setting
so that you don't accidentally blast tapioca flour
all over your kitchen.
You could also use a whisk
and blend this together by hand.
After all of those ingredients are combined,
add your melted chocolate
which should be at room temperature
and then mix them together on medium speed
for another minute or until your mixture
has thickened up to the consistency of cake batter.
Run a spatula around your bowl
and then pour the brownie batter into your cake pan.
Use your spatula to push the batter
into all the corners
and make sure it's fairly flat,
then pop your brownies in the oven for 25 to 28 minutes.
You really don't wanna overcook these brownies,
so if they seem a little soft to you in the middle
when you take them out, that's okay.
While the brownies are cooking,
I'm gonna whip up a really quick strawberry sauce
and if you've watched my chia seed jam recipe,
this should look familiar.
It's actually the same process of quartering
then cooking the strawberries.
Though I'm not adding chia seeds this time around.
You could also substitute the strawberries
with raspberries, blueberries or blackberries.
So feel free to get creative.
Heat a pot on medium heat
and then add the strawberries to the pot.
To the strawberries,
we'll add one teaspoon of lemon juice
and one to two tablespoons of maple syrup
depending on how sweet you would like your sauce.
Stir this together and in a couple of minutes,
your strawberries should start to break down.
After about five minutes,
your strawberries will be really soft
and then I take a potato masher to them
to break down any larger pieces.
Remove your brownies from the oven and let them cool
for five minutes in the pan.
I know this smell will have you wanting
to cut into them right away,
but do let them sit for a couple of minutes,
then just pull the parchment paper out
of the pan super easy and slice them up.
The brownies will be warm and fudgey and let's be honest,
I usually pop one in my mouth right away.
If you're serving these paleo brownies on their own,
I also love to add a little sprinkle of flake sea salt.
Sea salt enhances the flavor of chocolate
and it's an amazingly delicious and simple combo.
But if you wanna get fancy,
let's kick these brownies up a notch.
Just add a scoop of your favorite ice cream
and while I do have several vegan ice cream recipes
on my website, I'm going with a store bought version today.
Then drizzle a few generous spoonfuls
of your strawberry sauce and because mine is still warm,
it's melting the ice cream into a gooey mess
that I am perfectly happy with.
I hope you guys enjoyed today's paleo brownies recipe
and if you did, make sure to give it a thumbs up
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