Clare's Blog : Tanya Burr's Healthy Chocolate Brownies ... by Clare

Hello everyone,

Easter is finally upon us (yay!) which means that I can eat chocolate again (YAY!). And I was browsing the old videos of my favourite YouTubers when I came across this video by Tanya Burr where she makes brownies that are apparently 'healthy'. (Obviously, not as healthy as vegetables but healthier than the classic brownie in the supermarket.)

Normally, I don't like cooking videos because the skill of being able to cook and enjoy it has eluded me and graced other members of my family. But this one I was interested in because when I see online tutorials for anything and then attempt them, their finished product is so much different to my finished product. But this one I tried. I'll link her video because I changed three things about her recipe: I used LO Salt instead of Himalayan Salt, brown sugar instead of coconut sugar and half a cup instead of two. This was because I didn't have Himalayan Salt when I was making them and my family as a whole don't use a lot of sugar in our cooking, even if they say we should.

Tanya's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtwBjpFoZow
Apparently, the recipe is also available in her book which you can get here

Ingredients I used:
1. 300g of organic Green and Black's Dark Cooking Chocolate
2. Half a measuring cup of pure virgin coconut oil
3. One cup of FairTrade light brown sugar
4. Two cups of ground almonds
5. A pinch of salt
6. One capful of vanilla extract (a capful being the cap on the vanilla extract, not the measuring cup)
7. One teaspoon of baking powder
8. One mashed avocado (a soft, ripe avocado would make this easier. You can't taste it because it is a second substitute for butter.)
9. 3 eggs

Other stuff (because I always find this useful in recipes so that I can get it ready)
1. A large saucepan
2. A wooden spoon/spatula
3. Measuring cups of different sizes
4. Three spoons for scooping and stirring and mashing
5. Two bowls (one for eggs and one for avocado) OR One bowl (for avocado) and one mug (for eggs)
6. A baking tray (made for cooking brownies, NOT cakes)
7. A knife
8. Oven gloves

Instructions:

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius
Pre-mash the avocado. The best way to do this is to cut it in half, take out the stone, scoop out of the flesh of the avocado and put it in a bowl. Use a knife and spoon to mash it and chop it as much as possible but don't worry about chunks because once it is stirred in and cooked, you can't taste it anyway.
Pre-crack and beat the eggs, depending on your ability to do this. I am very bad at cracking eggs so I did it before starting.
Use the spoon to put half of measuring cup of coconut oil in the saucepan
Break up the chocolate in good sized chunks and add it in to the saucepan
Melt the chocolate and oil together on a LOW HEAT and stir with the wooden spoon/ spatula so that it doesn't burn
REMOVE FROM THE HEAT
Add in the brown sugar and stir
Add in the ground almonds, baking powder, vanilla extract, salt and avocado, stirring well after each ingredient to ensure the mixture is as smooth as possible (by this point it will not be completely smooth)
Add in the beaten eggs and stir. (I found a folding motion to be the best way of doing this. It also means you can mash any stray chunks of avocado that are particularly and ominously large.)
Pour into the baking tray and put it in the oven for 26 minutes.
Leave ten minutes to cool and then chop them up into good sized brownies.