Bill and I have been talking about brownies for a few weeks now. I keep making the joke that our chickens serve us breakfast and brownies, but really they just give us eggs to make things like brownies. Bill has been asking me for brownies for weeks as well. He doesn’t usually crave any particular dessert. Sometimes he will say he wants ice cream, but usually anything I feel like making, he will be excited for. It’s rare though that he asks for something specific like brownies. Plus I don’t even think brownies are one of his favorite desserts.
Anyway, I made fudgy brownies for Make it Paleo 2, and I really was proud of that recipe. I had a hard time making brownies prior to that without them being too cakey, and I really think brownies should be moist and fudgy. If they are like cake, then you’ve made a square chocolate cake, not brownies. Right? Right. I guess there are probably some people out there that like cake-like brownies though, so my apologies with that.
The only problem with my recipe was that I used chestnut flour, and almond flour would be an acceptable substitution if you don’t have chestnut flour. I really wanted to make a nut-free version of these brownies, but I was stuck on it because I felt like using coconut flour would make them too dry. I thought about trying cassava flour, but I was worried that wouldn’t work as I hoped either. I decided a seed butter was my best option. I wanted to use sunflower seed butter, but of course I didn’t have any, and I’ve mentioned before that I tend to bake on a whim. Thankfully I had a brand new jar of tahini (made from sesame seeds) in our pantry, so I decided to use that.
I was really worried that the tahini flavor would be too over powering for this recipe, but it actually worked quite well. No odd flavor detected!
Since I was using tahini, I really wanted to up the flavor profile to make sure that things turned out as I hoped. I based this recipe off of the one in Make it Paleo 2 (which is also here on our site), so I really just followed along my own recipe, and swapped a few things.
The first was I used Guittard Chocolate, because I had some, and it’s amazing. I went with a lighter version, 63%, because if you know me, you know that I think dark chocolate is the devil. That’s an exaggeration, but basically the truth. Gimme all the milk chocolate!
The next thing I did was I used Tin Star Foods Brown Butter Ghee. The interwebs have been going ape over this ghee for months, so I had to get my hands on it, and knew it would take this recipe to the next level. I was right.
I started off by melting the chocolate and ghee together, and adding vanilla extract and additional maple sugar. The smell was unreal. I wish I could describe it, but I can’t. There are no words. You just need to make it, and smell it for yourself. The best way I could describe it is like chocolate caramel. Yeah, that’s pretty much what it smelled like. Heaven.
While the melted chocolate mixture cooled, I blended up the other ingredients. This was the tahini, eggs, salt, and baking powder. I was still unsure at this point, but the texture seemed to look okay, and I just tried to ignore the tahini smell. Once the chocolate was cool enough, I added it to the other ingredients, and blended until it was smooth. It had the consistency of the perfect brownie batter, and smelled pretty good too! I had high hopes at this point.
I poured the batter into my baking dish, and popped it in the oven to bake at 350 for 30 minutes. At this point Bill was already licking the beaters, and raving about the flavor. Woohoo! When the brownies came out of the oven, they looked perfect. I could barely wait for them to cool, so I cut into them while they were still pretty warm. The texture wasn’t as I had hoped for, but as they cooled completely they were just as I had hoped. I thought they were too cakey, but they were just fudgy enough for me to be happy with them. The texture got even better overnight when I refrigerated them.
Bill told me they are the best brownies I’ve ever made. That might be true, or it might be true because treats don’t happen often in our house anymore, and he doesn’t remember what good desserts taste like. (I don’t forget what good desserts taste like… ever! -Bill) We took some to his parents, and they loved them too, so these are definitely a win!
If you don’t have or can’t eat tahini, try this recipe using sunflower seed butter, or almond butter, and let me know how it turns out!
xo,
Hayley
PS, if you missed it yesterday, check out our BIG announcement! We released a line of Organic Spices!!
Those look amazing!!