Gluten Free Brownies

Confession - a lot of the time I just wing it. Honestly, truly. 
I read a snippet of the instructions or directions, decide that's enough and dive in from there. (And then go searching on Google or YouTube to find out how I should have done it!). 

I'm not impetuous, just impatient! 

So that's been the way I've approached baking with coconut flour...
I read somewhere (briefly), that you couldn't simply substitute coconut flour for normal flour; it absorbs a lot of moisture, so you have to compensate for that. And I'd tasted a delicious, but crumbly-to-the-point-of-falling-apart loaf that a friend had made using coconut flour. So I knew that crumbling could be an issue. (Or a benefit ... Here's the Pear and Pecan Crumble  I made using coconut flour). That was enough data. I was ready to take the plunge! 

Because brownies require so little flour, and have an inherent stickiness from all that chocolate, they seemed like a good recipe to experiment with. 

And it worked - no need to turn to Google or YouTube! 🤓

You can't go wrong with the flavor combination of chocolate, coconut and banana. But the bananas are an especially great addition here, because they add extra moisture and binding to the mixture. 

So I've used my standard brownie recipe, added an extra egg, a little more butter, the bananas, and of course the coconut flour. Yum yum yum!
(If you don't like the taste of banana in your deserts - What?!! - then substitute apricot jam, like I did in these brownies.)

Gluten Free Brownies

Recipe by Tea, Cake & Create

Preheat the oven to 180'C

Grease and line a brownie pan.  
(I line the pan with 2 sheets of baking parchment placed at right angles to each other, forming a cross. This makes lifting the cooled brownies out of the pan very easy). 

Ingredients:

400g dark chocolate, cut into small even-sized pieces 

100g butter

4 XL eggs

100g caster sugar

70g coconut flour 

2 ripe bananas, mashed 

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp coconut flavoring*
* (optional... you don't often don't taste the coconut from the coconut flour once it's baked, but I didn't want to lose that part of the flavor trio here). 

Method:

Melt together the chocolate and butter. Cool slightly. 

Beat the eggs and sugar until light and creamy. Add in the vanilla and coconut flavor.  

Pour the melted chocolate/ butter mix into the egg mixture. Beat until smooth. 

{**One of the things I love about brownies (let's admit is - there are many things to love about brownies, and this might not be top of your list, but it's right up there for me!)  is that even if the chocolate / butter mix looks like it has seized - all lumpy and unco-operative - when you add it to the eggs, it smoothes out beautifully. Magic!}

Mix in the mashed banana, then sift in the coconut flour. 

Beat until well incorporated. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.  

Bake for approx 35 minutes.  A cake tester inserted into the middle of the brownies should come out with sticky crumbs attached, not wet batter and not clean.  

Allow to cool before removing from the pan and cutting into squares, or triangles.  

Gluten-free banana and coconut brownies that are so good that you won't even want to wait for a gluten-free reason to bake them! 

Happy baking! 

xxM