Recipe #1: Nut Butter Brownies

Disclaimer: If you and yours eat a high-sugar diet (high-fructose corn syrup, cane juice, sugar, sucrose, maltose, etc. all count!) then these brownies may not seem 'sweet enough' for you. To us, they are delectable! Enjoy a whole foods treat!

RECIPE #1: Peanut Butter Brownies

This was adapted from Elaine Gottschall's original recipe published in her book 'Breaking the Vicious Cycle'. The original recipe is also found on the SCD website with a photo here.

Ingredients:

1 c. cocoa powder
2 tsp. sea salt
3 c. natural peanut butter (other nut butters would work too)
8 eggs, beaten
2-3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 1/4 c. honey (we use raw)
2 Tbs. ghee (melted butter or oil would work too)
1 1/2 tsp. aluminum-free baking soda
1 c. chocolate chips, optional (we use Enjoy Life dairy-free mini chips)


Preheat the oven to 300 (it's best baked slowly, you could try 250 even). Grease a large 9 x 13" or 2 square pans (we use ghee).

Combine cocoa powder and salt and set aside. Blend wet ingredients well in a mixer (or high-capacity blender like a Vita-Mix, just be gradual with the peanut butter). Add dry ingredients gradually. Add baking soda last (then chocolate chips if you like). Batter will be thick like most banana bread recipes.

Spoon batter into greased pan(s) and spread evenly. Bake 'low and slow'. The batter will 'puff' quite high and then fall in the center. Bake about 1 hour for chewy cakey brownies. Bake less if you like them gooey (until the 'jiggle' is gone in the center). Maybe 40 minutes, depending on your oven.

The added mashed bananas add sweetness and gooey-ness, which we like. You can skip them, but it won't seem very sweet and you might need a bit of extra sweetener. Sometimes we have used 2 drops of stevia powder for this.

If you are into a really cakey brownie, you could replace 1 c. peanut butter with some almond flour and coconut flour. But if you go to all that trouble, you should just try THIS over at my favorite sweet-tooth blog 'Gluten Free Fix'. Michelle is a professionally-trained pastry chef, now Mommy blogger, and fabulous SCD foodie.