Vegan Red Kidney Bean Brownies ~ Gluten-Free ~ Fruit-Sweetened

Moist, fudgy and easy to whip up, this is my favorite brownie recipe. Not just delicious, these brownies are also packed with fiber, protein and antioxidants. A chocolaty way to get more pulses!

WHY RED KIDNEY BEANS

Using beans in plant-based oil-free baking is relatively new to Western cuisine, with health conscious vegan and plant-based foodies at the forefront of this trend. While many Westerners remain reluctant about seeing beans in these unexpected places, Asian culinary traditions have used beans in sweet confections for centuries, if not longer. Putting beans in your sweet snacks is a delightful way to increase your intake of legumes. And nutritional science suggests that regular intake of legumes may be the single strongest dietary predictor of a long lifespan. Each kind of bean brings a unique nutritional profile, color, flavor and texture to your baking.

The first bean brownie recipes I tried called for black beans. Unfortunately, I was not impressed. Although the blackness of the beans made sense in terms of color, I tasted too much of the quirky flavor profile of the black beans. And while I love tasting black beans in veggie burgers and other savory foods, for me that taste interfered with the chocolaty brownie experience. I’ve had good results with chickpeas and various white beans in brownie recipes, but I like the color and moisture level of red kidney bean brownies best of all. I’m the type of person that leaves no stones unturned, and since I’ve always enjoyed adzuki beans in Japanese sweets, I also tried making adzuki bean brownies. They were pretty good, but they were not better than these red kidney bean brownies made with canned beans that I can buy just about anywhere.

FOOD PROCESSOR NEEDED

This recipe requires a food processor in order to create a smooth cake-like batter. Electronic appliances like food processors and blenders allow us to quickly and easily harness the power of whole plant foods such as dates and cooked beans, eliminating the need for ingredients like oil, sugar, white flour and eggs which are calorie dense and comparatively low in nutrients.

MAKE YOUR OWN OAT FLOUR

If you want to use store bought oat flour, that’s fine. But making your own oat flour is easy, fast and economical. All you need is rolled oats, old fashioned or quick, and a food processor or high speed blender. Place your oats in your processor or blender and pulse until you get flour. Don’t over process your oat flour because it will become sticky and not work as well in your recipes. As far as flour texture goes, oat flour that’s a little coarse works better for most types of baking. Don’t try to make too much at a time. Small batches, no more than a cup and a half at a time, are better. I usually only process the amount I’m about to use in a recipe. One cup of oats makes approximately one cup of oat flour. Keep in mind that pure oats are gluten-free, but since oats can become contaminated with gluten during processing or harvesting, choose a brand of oats or oat flour marked gluten-free if you need to be 100% gluten-free for health reasons.

THE MAGIC OF DATES IN WFPB BAKING

My sweet recipes get most of their sweetness from whole dried fruits. And my go to dried fruits for sweetening recipes are dates. Dates are intensely sweet with a rich caramel-like flavor that blends in seamlessly with other ingredients. When pureed with liquid ingredients, dates work as a binder, helping to hold batters together the way that eggs do in traditional, non-vegan, baking. Pureed dates also help to lock in moisture, acting as a substitute for added fats in whole food plant-based recipes. From a nutritional standpoint, dates are a whole plant food packed with fiber and a symphony of other nutrients. For this recipe, I soak sliced dates in plant milk for at least ten minutes to soften them before processing with other ingredients.

CHOOSING AND PREPPING DATES

My favorite dates for baking are pitted Deglet Noor because they are sweet, flavorful, widely available and usually soft and moist. You can also use any other type of dates by prepping and measuring them in the same way as you would Deglet Noor. When I bake with dates I always begin by slicing them. I have found that dates that are supposedly pitted are, in fact, usually not all pitted. Pre-slicing dates gives me the opportunity to remove any hidden pits and hard stems that may still be attached. In recipes like this one where the dates will be processed in a blender or food processor, slicing helps them be processed more quickly and effectively. Finally, slicing allows for greater consistency when measuring. Once the dates are sliced they can be pressed into measuring cups or spoons.

FOOD PROCESSOR NEEDED

This recipe requires a food processor in order to create a smooth cake-like brownie batter. Electronic appliances like food processors and blenders allow us to quickly and easily harness the power of whole plant foods such as dates and cooked beans, eliminating the need for ingredients like oil, sugar, white flour and eggs which are calorie dense and comparatively low in nutrients.

COCOA POWDER IS A WHOLE PLANT FOOD

Rejoice! Cocoa powder is a whole plant food with a number of nutritional benefits. Although processing is involved, cocoa powder is derived from whole seeds of the cacao tree, and retains many of the nutrients present before processing including fiber, antioxidants and minerals like iron, magnesium, copper and zinc. There are two types of cocoa powder: natural and Dutch-processed, a.k.a. European-style cocoa powder. If you want to maximize the nutritional benefits of cocoa powder, go for natural instead of Dutch-processed because in removing some of the acidity, the Dutch processing technique also decreases flavanol content. And flavanols are powerful antioxidants with a variety of health enhancing benefits. But that doesn’t mean that Dutch-processed cocoa is bad for you, only that it’s a little less good. Natural cocoa powder will always be more acidic. If the tang bothers you, then go with Dutch-processed.

SUNFLOWER SEED BUTTER AND OTHER OPTIONS

I love using sunflower seed butter in my recipes. This rich creamy spread can be used in place of any type of nut butter and, in some cases, it can also be a substitute for tahini. The taste is subtle and neutral so other flavors can take a front seat when you want them to. Sunflower seed butter has an awesome nutritional profile, boasting a variety of nutrients including vitamin E and iron. Just as importantly, it has a lower ratio of saturated fat than nut butters. And it’s the perfect choice if you’re trying to avoid allergens like tree nuts or peanuts.

So what are the cons? Well, it’s usually more expensive than most nut butters and it can be difficult to find a sugar free brand.

You can easily substitute almond butter, cashew butter, or tahini for sunflower seed butter in this recipe. Technically, you could also use creamy peanut butter, but then your brownies will taste like a chocolate peanut butter cup.

For a lower fat and lower caloric density version of this recipe, simply leave out the sunflower seed butter, or nut butter. The brownies will still be delicious. You will be sacrificing just a little of the texture, flavor and nutrients. Do what’s best for you and your family, keeping in mind that children need more fat in their diets than adults.

DON’T LEAVE OUT THE CHOCOLATE CHIPS

If you’re trying to be as whole food plant-based adherent as possible, I can understand wanting make these brownies without the chocolate chips. But here’s the thing, I’ve tried leaving out the chocolate chips, and this recipe just doesn’t taste nearly as good without them. Dairy-free chocolate chips are widely available, so at least staying plant-based or vegan shouldn’t be an issue. I like to use Just Date Organic 65% Cacao Dark Chocolate Chips that are sweetened entirely from dates, no sugar. You can also make your own chip size chocolate chunks out of your favorite healthy plant-based chocolate bar.

STICK PROOFING YOUR BROWNIE PAN

Home baking requires time and effort. The last thing anyone wants is for the fruit of all that effort to end up falling apart because it got stuck to a pan or baking sheet. Using oil or butter to grease pans is the old fashioned way to get things not to stick. It works, especially if you also add a layer of flour or some other starch, and I still do it sometimes. But because I prefer to avoid using added fats in my cooking, I like to use parchment paper liners whenever possible. You can get parchment paper and baking cups just about anywhere and that’s all you need for baking sheets and muffin pans. Cake, loaf and brownie pans are tricker because pre-formed liners for these pans are not available at most local grocery stores. They are available online and they’re worth getting if you do a lot of baking. I use BakeBarn 8 inch square pre-formed parchment paper liners instead of greasing and flouring my brownie pan. These liners not only help me avoid using added fats, they also save time.

There are also various methods for using flat parchment paper to line deep pans that have been recommended to me which I haven’t tried, like crumpling up a sheet of parchment paper so that it bends more easily along the sides.

When I’m out of liners, or don’t have parchement paper, or if I don’t have the right size liner for the pan I want to use, I’m a stickler about greasing and dusting my brownie pans. I do it even if it means being less whole food plant-based adherent. Not only are brownies much less likely to stick if pans are greased and dusted instead of just being greased, the starch used for dusting also acts as a protective barrier keeping the grease away from the brownies themselves. For grease you can use oil, vegan butter or even coconut oil (if you don’t mind imparting a bit of coconut flavor). For dusting, I use cornstarch or a gf flour blend if I need to keep things gluten-free, otherwise I go with all-purpose flour.

SCRUMPTIOUS WHEN FROSTED

If you want, you can dress up these brownies taking them to another level of scrumptiousness by frosting them with my creamy silken tofu based chocolate frosting or chocolate frosting made with Kite Hill cream cheese alternative. Of course, you could use any frosting you like, chocolate or otherwise. The nice thing about these frostings is that, like the brownies, they are oil-free, sugar-free and gluten-free.

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