Black Bean Brownies

Yes I said black bean brownies, it may sound weird but they are so yummy.  My kids prefer these brownies to regular brownies because they are more fudgy.  With a few subsitutions you have a brownie that is lower in fat and higher in fiber and protein.  Remember there is still alot of sugar in these brownies so no you can't eat the whole pan....lol

Black Bean Brownies

Ingredients:
1- 15.5 oz can black beans
1 large box of brownie mix
nonstick cooking spray to coat pan

Instructions:
Spray 9x9 inch pan with nonstick cooking spray.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Open the can of black beans and drain out the liquid then rinse off the black beans.  Put the black beans back in the can and finish filling the can with water.  Dump the black beans and water into a blender and puree.  In a mixing bowl combine brownie mix and pureed beans, stir just until combined then pour into pan.  Bake as directed on box. 

I have these baking right now and I thought I would take this time to give you the nutritional information on both normal brownies and black bean brownies so you can see for yourself the difference.  The following information is for the whole batch, you can use this to decide whatever serving size you want by dividing each amount by the number of servings.

Normal Brownies                   Black Bean Brownies
3400 calories                                2620 calories
160g fat                                          40g fat
0g fiber                                           21g fat
480g carbs                                    537g carbs
340g sugar                                    320g sugar
40g protein                                    48g protein
2100mg sodium                            3265mg sodium

As you can see we cut the fat by 75% and increased the fiber from 0g to 21g.  The carbs did go up alittle and so did the protein but as far the significant increase in sodium I'm not sure if thats an accurate measure or not because we did dump the liquid out of the black beans and rinse them off so I would think that would have decreased the sodium alot.  I still would chose the black bean brownies over normal brownies anytime.  I've tried other recipes with yogurt and applesauce and none have turned out as fudgy and chocolatey as these.  And if you are worried about tasting the black beans in the actually brownies, you don't, they just add to the fudginess.  If I can get a good picture of the brownies once they are cooled and cut I will post that later just so you can see how good they look.  Here is the picture I promised even though its not that good, can't wait until I get a better digital camera.