Recipe: Crunchy Chocolate Low Sugar Brownies

This week’s low sugar brownies recipe is one of my own creations. I love making snacks for my two young boys, but really struggle with the amount of sugar needed for some recipes. So after some experimenting I came up with a recipe that has plenty of flavour, a good amount of crunch, but not heaps of sugar. You can easily adapt this for plant based diets by using vegan butter and a suitable egg substitute. If nut allergies are present, substitute the ground almonds with desiccated coconut, or coconut sugar and a little extra flour. You can also swap out the roasted nuts for chopped dates, raisins or cranberries.

Ingredients: (items marked * can be bought from us) Makes approx. 10 brownies.

• 120g butter
• 120g dark chocolate chips*
• 2 eggs or egg substitute
• 65g ground almonds*
• 100g caster sugar*
• 60g plain flour*
• 15g cocoa powder*
• 130g mixed nuts of any type* (I just use any lurking in the cupboard)
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt*

Method:

1. Pop the oven on at 180C (I use eco mode). Spread the nuts on a tray and place in the oven straight away. While the oven is warming, the nuts will toast slightly. Do keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t burn. The more broken bits- the better! This recipe is a fab way to use up odds and ends of nuts.

2. Place the butter (or substitute) in a glass or ceramic bowl with the chocolate chips. Heat in the microwave in 15 second increments until melted. Take care handling the bowl – it may be hot. If you don’t have a microwave, a gentle heat with a pan on the hob will work. Leave to cool whilst you do the next step.

3. Whisk the eggs (or substitute) with the sugar and ground almonds in a separate bowl. Take the nuts out of the oven, and chop slightly if you wish.

4. Add the sugar/egg/almond mix into the melted chocolate mix, and fold in the rest of the ingredients. Fold together slowly and take care not to overmix. If the nuts are still hot, give them a few minutes to cool first.

5. Carefully tip the mixture into a lined baking dish or deep tray. Pop in oven for 15 minutes, a couple of minutes longer if you want the brownies to be less gooey/fudgy.

6. Once the cooking time is up, remove from oven and leave on side to completely cool. The last part of the cooking process will happen in the dish. I chilled mine once cooled to make them easier to cut.

7. These are lovely straight from the fridge or an airtight tub, or will freeze well (if they last that long!)

We hope you loved this low cost, low sugar brownies recipe- there will be more to come!