Dark Chocolate Brownies

The brownies I used to bake had coconut shreds and gf rolled oats which created a very nice cake texture. Skipping the saturated fat level of the coconut, I decided to use cashews and gf rolled oats.

Ingredients:

1 cup raw cashew pieces

3 cups gf rolled oats

2 cups water

2 medium to large bananas

6 pitted dates

4 tbls cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

Grapeseed or olive oil to coat the 2.2 liter glass pan

Prep:

Coarse (or fine) grind the cashews with 1 cup of the oats. Oats in first helps keep it from caking too much. I use the Vita-Mix with the dry blender container for this.

Add that to the rest of the oats in a medium mixing bowl. Stir in the cocoa powder and salt until the mix is evenly coated.

In the same blender container, blend the water, bananas, and dates on high. Then blend a bit more at a lower speed to chop the dates better. You can tell the dates aren’t done if you turn the blender off and it sounds like it’s still chunking through something as the blades come to a stop. The dry Vita-Mix blender container isn’t the best tool for this part, but it’s good enough and doesn’t dirty a second blender container.

Pour into the mixing bowl and stir. Pour this into the greased glass pan.

Bake:

Preheat oven to 375 F

Bake for 1 hour with optional turn of the pan at 30 minutes. At the 1 hour mark, turn off the oven and leave it closed until you’re ready to eat and/or put in the fridge. 

Thoughts:

The oats and the banana are binders. No need for egg or flax. Banana also helps remove any chalky texture from the cocoa powder. That’s especially helpful if you’re making pudding with silken tofu, banana, cocoa powder, and a sweetener.

The brownies came out a touch dry. The oats absorb a lot of liquid while they cook. There are a few ways to fix that. One is easy - add more water. The other is to find the best balance between gf rolled oats and cashews. A third option is to add mini chocolate chips. I think my next batch will have 1 1/2 cups of cashews to 2 1/2 cups of oats. I also want to try making a nut-free version using raw sunflower seeds.

These hold together best when cold. They held together better warm than when I made them with coconut shreds.