Sweet potato brownies and other stories


The weird thing about healthier eating is some of the recipes people pass on to you. They sound implausible at best and disgusting at worst. The trouble is that even though I want to eat better and look better as a result I hate the feeling that I can't have any treats. I don't know why that concept is fundamentally so important to me but it is and so I spend much of my free time looking for better ways to treat myself. Then I usually follow that up by eating way too much of the healthier treat and being forced to take a break for a while. I recently learned how to make my own protein fudge and since discovered its a lot more calorific (mostly good calories but still) that I had thought, mostly because I was too busy scoffing it and feeling good about myself for eating so healthily. Its made up of almond butter, coconut oil, vanilla rice protein, cacao powder, rice syrup and pecan nuts so it shouldn't be too surprising that combining lots of good fats makes for fairly fattening fudge but I wasn't really thinking about that side of things.

 I have found I am becoming more open to trying healthier recipes than I would have been before. There was a time when I would have been more than a little bit sceptical and fully prepared to dislike the end results because the combination of ingredients just happened to be a little unconventional. Now that I have been off sugar around 3 months and off wheat a lot longer I get very very excited when someone passes me a recipe I might be able to use and it was with the spirit I found myself in work baking sweet potato brownies. The original recipe I was given for these uses honey or you could also use maple syrup but I find because of my candida they both make me very ill and so I have opted to use rice syrup.

 Now I know at this point you are probably making a disgusted face at the thought of eating brownies with sweet potato, much like my mum did when I mentioned my baking efforts in her presence. But if you could  suspend your disbelief for a few moments and just go with me on this one then you might find yourself very surprised. The sweet potato actually gives the brownie a lovely moist quality and you don't taste it at all.

 RECIPE
1 large sweet potato (cut into chunks)
2 eggs (beaten) 
3 tsp almond flour (ground almonds - available in any supermarket baking aisle)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup cacao powder
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup rice syrup (or honey or maple syrup)
a handful of pecan nuts (roughly chopped)

 1. Cook the chunks of sweet potato until soft and then drain and mash and add to a large bowl
2. add the eggs and mix
3. add the cacoa powder, baking powder and almond flour and mix
4. add melted coconut oil and rice syrup and mix 
5. add the chopped pecan nuts and mix
6. pour the whole mixture into a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and spread out until tray is equally covered by brownie mix
7. cook in a preheated oven 180c for about 25-30 mins or until mixture looks firm
8. allow to cool and cut into slices

Because of the coconut oil the brownies should be kept in the fridge (it melts at room temperature) and they taste even nicer that way. Now for the hard part, try not to eat them all at once.

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