Nick’s Chocolate, Banana and Pumpkin Brownies

There are several different ways to make brownies. Before establishing my own recipe, I wanted to create a brownie recipe that wasn’t too butter heavy and I wanted the creative variation of incorporating other whole foods. I use banana a lot in baking, but I have never experimented with pumpkin before. In this recipe, I find that mashed pumpkin blends very well with raw cane sugar and is great when combined with mashed bananas. The banana and pumpkin combo also gives these brownies a delightful gooey-like texture and is a much more healthy substitute to using large quantities of butter.

 

INGREDIENTS

A good wedge of pumpkin (peeled and cut into cubes)
2 old bananas
1 cup of raw cane sugar
3 eggs
1-1.5 cups of plain flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 small slivers of butter
Cocoa Powder (about one third of a cup)
100 grams of dark chocolate
Rapeseed oil

 

Instructions:

1) Wash the pumpkin cubes and boil in a pan of water until soft.

2) Drain the water from the pan and then mash the pumpkin.

3) Pour one quarter of a cup of raw cane sugar into the pan and mix well with the pumpkin.

4) In a bowl, mash the two bananas.

5) Then crack and apply the 3 eggs to the mashed bananas.

6) Whisk the eggs and mashed bananas thoroughly until smooth and finely blended.

7) Add the pumpkin mixture to the banana and egg mixture and blend well.

8) Add and stir in the remaining three quarters of the cup of raw cane sugar to the mixture in the bowl.

9) Sieve the flour and baking powder into a separate larger bowl.

10) Add one of the two small slivers of butter to the flour and mix well with your hands until the butter is fully integrated into the flour.

11) Next, mix in the cocoa powder to the flour.

12) Apply the banana, pumpkin and egg mixture to the flour and cocoa and stir in thoroughly

13) Add drizzles of rapeseed oil to the mixture, which will further moisten it and aid in getting all the remaining flour and cocoa at the bottom of the bowl properly blended in.

14) Break the dark chocolate into small pieces and put in a small bowl.

15) Add boiling water to a small saucepan and cook on a reasonably high heat.

16) Put the bowl over the saucepan. The chocolate should slowly melt.

17) Once the chocolate has melted, apply and stir it into the mixture in the large bowl.

18) Use the second small sliver of butter to sufficiently grease a rectangular baking tray. Then line the tray with parchment paper.

19) Preheat an oven at 180 degrees Celsius.

20) Apply all the brownie mixture to the tray and put the tray in the oven to cook for 20 minutes.

21) Take the brownies out of the oven and with a small knife or food stick, prick the deepest part of the cooked brownie mixture. At this stage it is very important that it retains at least a modest layer of goey-ness. However we don’t want the mixture too dry and cake-like. If the mixture is too goey and liquid-like return to the oven for a further 5-10 minutes.

 

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Recipe and photo by Nicholas Peart

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