Chocolate and Coconut Brownies

Happy Saturday! Today is the perfect day for baking, I have plenty of time, it's a bit rainy outside and I just spent £20 on ingredients (whoops...).

If you regularly read my blog you might have noticed that I often omit certain ingredients for a little while, I've done sugar-free, low-fibre, wheat-free, gluten- free, dairy-free, egg-free, even apple-free! This constant changing is as a result of long-term health problems which I won't bore you with. My current situation is low-carb (i.e. no sugar or flour), this also rules out most fruits as they are high in natural sugar.  However, I must bake!

I have been looking to Rose Elliot for help, and she had a great recipe for low-carb brownies. But they needed sweeter (artificial or Stevia), which I didn't have. So after doing a bit of research and some imaginative thinking I came up with these brownies. The 'sweetness' comes from coconut virgin oil (available from health-food shops), dark chocolate and double cream.

Ingredients
100g butter
100g dark chocolate (mine was 85% cocoa)
20g coconut virgin oil
2 eggs, beaten
25ml double cream (or thereabouts, it's quite hard to measure)
100g ground almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
50g walnuts, coarsely or finely chopped (depending on preference)

Method
Step 1
Put the butter and chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Leave to melt, stirring occasionally. Once melted remove the bowl from the pan and leave to cool slightly.

Step 2
Meanwhile whisk together the coconut oil, eggs and double cream.

Step 3
Add the ground almonds and baking powder to the egg mixture, along with the chocolate and butter mix. Whisk until all combined. Finally stir in the chopped walnuts.

Step 4
Spoon the mixture into a 20 x 25cm (or the closest you have, 20 x 20cm would probably be better) greased and lined tin. Bake in a 160°C preheated oven for about 20 minutes. They should look cooked, but it's ok if a skewer doesn't come out completely clean as you want them moist and squishy.

Step 5
Leave to cool completely in the tin. Turn out onto a wire rack and cut into pieces

Verdict
Now, there is good news and bad news. The good news (because you should always have it first) is that they tasted good! Of course there aren't the sweetest brownies in the world, but have you seen the quantities of sugar that go into some of them?! I really liked the moist texture, hint of coconut and crunchy nuts, nevermind the fact that on my low-carb diet I am eating brownies!
And the bad news, well they fell apart slightly (so I don't have perfectly sized pieces). I think this is due to the ratio of the ingredients (I did make the recipe up). Next time I will add extra butter and ground almonds and see if that helps.


Mine made about 20 pieces, this works out at a mere 1.3g carbs per piece (approximately) and 3g protein. To compare a Starbucks brownie has 46g carbs!

The downside of this recipe is that the ingredients are quite expensive, especially if you buy organic like me (I managed to make these completely organic which is rarely possible). However, things like the coconut oil last and you don't need much. Plus organic is good for you :-)