Brownies: Do a GOOP Turn Daily

It all started with Rocco DiSpirito.

Actually, before it started with Rocco DiSpirito, it started with Ellie Krieger. But I don’t like to blame Ellie Krieger for things, because I like her recipes and I like her. Whereas with Rocco… my feelings run the gamut from “meh” all the way to “augh, shut up and die, famewhore.”

Anyway, Ellie Krieger. I had made her macaroni and cheese this winter, and either because I did something wrong or because it contained 20 oz of pureed squash, the whole thing was a mess. It looked like macaroni and cheese – beautiful, orange, macaroni and cheese – but it tasted like squash. It actually made me angry every time I tried to eat it. I’d get lured in by the delicious appearance, and then I’d take a bite and suddenly it was “gaaaah! Squash!!!” all over again.

So it started because I was looking for a macaroni and cheese recipe that wouldn’t be 90 million calories, but also wouldn’t taste like squash. I picked up Rocco’s Now Eat This! cookbook because his recipe looked promising – and it turned out to be quite good. So I was skimming the book for other recipes I thought I’d enjoy (the black bean soup is excellent), and my eye wandered, as it does, to the dessert section.

I realized quickly that I would probably never make any of the desserts from this cookbook, because they all involve cups and cups of artificial sweetener. And I hate artificial sweetener – it’s odd, because I used to eat and drink it by the bucketful, but about a year and a half ago I cut it out. And now it tastes awful and gives me the worst headache if I have even a teaspoon of it.

As I was reading about things with 6 cups of Splenda and 9 cups of Truvia, I came across his recipe for brownies. Twenty four packets of Truvia. Egg substitute. And 1 ½ cans of black beans.

“Black beans?” I asked myself. “In brownies?” I shuddered, and tried not to think about it. But then a few days later, a friend of mine sent me some kind of article about dessert trends or something like that. She’d sent it because one of the desserts was some kind of bacon topped cupcake, but the second or third one down was another recipe for brownies with black beans in them.

“More brownies with beans,” I said. “This is starting to make me and the Baby Jesus very angry.” And then that very weekend I was cleaning the house with the Food Network on, and Melissa d’Arabian was making one of her (allegedly) $10 Dinners. And for dessert? She was making black bean brownies.

“Universe!” I said aloud. “No matter how many signs you send me, I have NO INTENTION of putting beans in my brownies!”

I mean, I love black beans. I love them in salads and soups and burritos and nachos. . .but I do not want them in my brownies. No way, no how. Do not tell me how good they taste – I will call you a hippie and a liar. I’ll know you’re a hippie because you’re putting beans in your brownies, and I’ll know you’re a liar because a friend of mine made Rocco’s bean brownies – despite my warning him that doing so would make me and Jesus very, very angry with him – and he said they were awful, and tasted like Truvia and beans. Bleh.

But beyond the obvious wrongness of beans interfering with your dessert, I get upset about the epidemic of bean brownies for one of the same reasons I hated the macaroni and squash – I don’t like foods pretending to be what they’re not. I’m not talking about cute little tromp l’oeil’s or “tasty fakes” where your dessert looks like a hot dog or the watermelon that Floyd cut to look like tuna for his Kama Sutra Shrimp (finally got around to watching that episode. Rather liked it). I’m talking about all this vegetable smuggling – this trick of hiding vegetables in other foods to con ourselves into eating something good for us.

I mean, what are we? A nation of fucking children? Vegetables are delicious. Beans are delicious; squash is delicious. And on the converse, brownies are delicious, as is mac and cheese. Why can’t we just enjoy all the delicious things separately and really enjoy their various sorts of deliciousness instead of trying to combine them into one dish that ends up being a pathetic, tasteless counterfeit of what we really want?

Which is why I was glad to discover that Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook has a recipe for “Fudgy Chocolate Brownies.” And that right under the title it says “these are about as healthy as brownies can get, with no flavor sacrifice.” And that in the list of ingredients, there is nary a bean. Nor a Truvia packet.

It does call for spelt flour, but I used whole wheat. 2 cups of that and a cup of cocoa powder get sifted with a tablespoon and a half of baking powder and a pinch of salt.

Then in a second bowl, you combine a half cup of vegetable oil with a cup of maple syrup, a half cup of brown rice syrup (or light agave nectar), a half cup each of strong brewed coffee and soy milk (I used actual milk – I am not a soy fan)and a tablespoon of vanilla. Yeah, it looks a bit grotty in that picture, but it all blends fine.

Mix those together and throw in a half cup of chocolate chips. Then pour it into your greased baking pan, and sprinkle another half cup of chocolate chips over the top.

It all gets baked for about half an hour in a 350 degree oven, and when it comes out….

Calling them “Fudgy Chocolate Brownies” is an understatement. These are delicious, gooey, fudge-tacular brownies. They are melt in your mouth soft and so delicious when they’re warm. I recommend either eating them all immediately shortly after they come out of the oven, or reheating them individually if you feel you must exercise discretion.