Healthy Gluten & Dairy Free Pecan Brownies

Who doesn’t love to eat sweets without feeling guilty? Well, I love to when I don’t have to think about calories so I often look for healthy recipes and of course, it has to taste delicious! Seeing my passion for cooking, my husband has started gifting me cook books and I absolutely love these gifts. One of the first books he gifted me was Rachel Allen’s “Cake” and it has everything you would ever need to make and bake stuff. I must have made dozens of desserts from that book and one of the favorites amongst friends & family are “Pecan Brownies”. This is one of the most delicious brownies and the best part is, that it is super healthy! I have tried it with walnuts as well, so you can try adding any nuts to add crunch to the brownies 🙂

Pecan Brownies

Ingredients:

• Dark Chocolate – 125 grams
• Soft Dark Brown Sugar – 225 grams
• Sunflower Oil – 125 ml (plus extra for greasing)
• Vanilla Extract – 1 teaspoon
• Eggs – 2, at room temperature
• Ground Almonds – 75 grams
• Rice Flour – 25 grams
• Salt – 1/2 teaspoon
• Baking Powder or gluten-free baking powder – 1/2 teaspoon
• Pecans (or walnuts or any other nuts) – 75 grams chopped plus 12 whole (shelled) pecans to decorate

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F). Grease a cake tin with sunflower oil and line it with a baking paper and keep aside.
2. To melt the chocolate you can EITHER use the double boiler approach where you place chocolate drops or broken chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set it over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Leave just until melted, stirring occasionally. OR you can also use a microwave-safe bowl on medium power setting, heat the chocolate in shorter intervals and stir between each bout of heat.
3. Add sugar, sunflower oil, vanilla extract and eggs, one at a time into the cooled melted chocolate. Whisk together well.
4. Gently fold in the ground almonds, rice flour, salt, baking powder and chopped pecans.
5. Pour the batter into the lined tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a knife or a skewer inserted through the center of the cake comes out clean.
6. Remove from the oven and let it cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn onto a wire rack and allow it to cool completely before cutting it.

Enjoy these brownies without feeling guilty 😉