Recently, I feel like I went through a stage of being super organised with my recipes and always having a huge backlog of blog posts waiting to go up. However, this has reached a bit of a standstill at the moment, as I’ve become so swamped with work! This is obviously a very good thing (especially when you’re self employed and don’t have contracted hours etc), however, I’m also someone that hates turning down any opportunity and often end up juggling about 20 different things at the same time!
I’ve also been really struggling with motivation this week and have been experiencing periods of feeling really low and just very unmotivated. You know those times when you just feel like everything is going wrong. Ive actually taken two rest days away from the gym this week- so maybe that’s why I’m feeling so stressed out?!
Anyway, I really want to get back into that flow of constant recipe uploads and feeling super motivated to work again! Once these next few major jobs are done and dusted, hopefully normal recipe creation can resume again!
Okay, so I should probably say a little something about these brownies now we’re here. I haven’t baked brownies in a little while come to think of it.. and they are one of my favourite things to bake! I just love baking in general to be honest.. it’s pretty much how I first started out in the kitchen. I was recently speaking to my dad about how I would make cupcakes when I was off college (about 17-18 years old) and would get all fancy decorating them with buttercream icing swirls and those sugar flower things. Apparently I used to say that I would love to be able to do this as a job and just spend time making cakes look pretty. I’d actually forgotten about this, but maybe that’s where it all started?! I mean, I would definitely say that I do a lot more than just decorate cakes now, but it’s a pretty big part of my job, which is pretty cool!
I actually made these when I was visiting my mum the other day because I still wanted to do something productive on my day off (classic not being able to just chill out). I also love cooking at home with her because that’s where everything all started a couple of years ago and it makes me feel so relaxed and at home!
The brownies themselves are definitely of the gooey variety; which, in my opinion are waaaaay better than cakey ones anyway! They’re so soft and fudgey and the chocolate ‘buttercream’ style frosting just takes them to a whole other level of indulgence. They’re actually also completely flourless, as I’ve used ground almonds instead here- and gluten, dairy and refined sugar free.
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp raw cacao powder
- 2 tbsp smooth almond butter
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar
- 3/4 cup ground almonds
- 3 tbsp coconut oil
- 3 tbsp maple syrup/honey
- Pinch sea salt
- Handful chopped dark chocolate
- 1 whole egg
- 2 tbsp cacao powder
- 2 tbsp almond butter
- 2 tbsp honey/maple syrup
- Almond milk as needed
Method
Preheat your oven to 180c and line a brownie tray with baking paper.
In a mixing bowl, cream together the coconut oil, almond butter, coconut sugar and sweetener of choice.
Beat in the egg until well combined.
Next, fold through the cacao powder, salt and ground almonds so that you’re left with a smooth chocolatey batter.
Carefully mix in the chocolate chunks and transfer the mixture into your brownie dish.
Pop these into the oven to bake for around 15-20 minutes, then remove and allow to cool.
To make the frosting, combine the cacao powder, almond butter and honey and mix well. Gradually drizzle in the almond milk whilst mixing until you’re left with a thick and creamy frosting.
Slice the brownies into squares, then evenly spread over the frosting (I find this works better than frosting before slicing, as they’re quite gooey).
