My husband and I were invited to a cook out at our friends house.  They were making burgers on the grill and a salad.  While they didn't ask us to bring anything I thought it would be nice to make something.  The tricky thing is the couple hosting follows the Paleo diet and one of them hates all veggies and fruit.   Hummmm...   So I had to think what would be Paleo that most people would like, that wouldn't need to be refrigerated, and doesn't have veggies or fruit?   I scoured through my pinterest boards, (finally all my time putzing around on pinterest has paid off), and then I had it, brownies.  Who doesn't like brownies? They're always great for a picnic or pot luck!


How You Can Make These Brownies Paleo
 I actually decided on sweet potato brownies even though one of the hosts isn't into veggies.  I figured veggies well mixed into brownies would probably be OK with him, and it's a great way to reduce fat and sugar, and add nutrition to the brownies. This is a great treat to make for kids to help sneak some extra veggies into their diet!

I also didn't make them strickly Paleo, because Paleo cooking uses honey or maple syrup in place of sugar.  I personally don't like using honey or maple syrup in lots of recipes because it distorts the flavor of the end product, and I hate using a lot of sugar.  I usually prefer to use organic sugar with a little stevia to help reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe.  I never use straight stevia because it can taste bitter and off to most people.  This recipe also uses chocolate syrup and chips which do have dairy in it, which of course is not Paleo.  You could easily make this recipe Paleo by using honey or maple syrup and using vegan chocolate chips and omitting the chocolate syrup, by omitting the syrup it will just be a tad dryer and have a less intense chocolate flavor.

My Intense Chocolate Fudgy Trick
This was my first time making brownies with sweet potatoes and I made the recipe up and brought my tester batch with me to the cook out.  Luckily they turned out since it was my first batch from a recipe I made up.  I'm a dare devil when it comes to cooking.  Melting the butter (instead of creaming it) or coconut oil along with the right amount of flour, and eggs create the fudgy texture.

This recipe uses 3 different kinds of chocolate (cocoa, chocolate chips, and syrup) that adds an intense chocolate flavor.  This is how America's Test Kitchen makes their low fat brownies. Their standard brownie is made with cocoa, bittersweet or semi sweet chocolate, and unsweetened chocolate.  This is their trick to create a rich chocolate fudgy flavor.  For their low fat brownie they swapped out the unsweetened chocolate in their standard brownie recipe for syrup in their low fat brownie because they said they liked the added moistness to the brownie.  So I did the same.  Worked like a charm!

Healthy Sweet Potato Fudgy Brownies 
(GF, Flourless, Low Sugar and Fat, Paleo option)

Ingredients

• ½ tsp of sea salt 
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder (aluminum free)
• ½ cup dark chocolate chips, (can sub bittersweet, or semi sweet) (use vegan chocolate chips to make paleo)
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 Tablespoon organic chocolate syrup (can omit to make paleo)
• 1/2 cup almond flour (can sub organic AP GF flour (would not be paleo anymore), almond meal or coconut flour)
• 1 Tablespoon hemp protein powder (can sub with flax meal, or almond meal or flour, or coconut flour) 
• 1/4 cup organic sugar (can sub honey to make it paleo)
• 1/4 cup Stevia in the Raw (can sub ¼ cup organic sugar or honey if your not a big stevia fan)
• 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted (can sub melted pasture raised butter)
• 3 large organic eggs, whisked
• 1 medium sweet potato (9-10 oz, 1 cup cooked and mashed)

How to make it:
1.  Option 1: to cook sweet potatoes bake: Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Use a knife or a fork to puncture the sweet potato before baking it for 25-30 minutes. Once your sweet potato is cooked all the way through, peel the skin and mash it up in a bowl.
Option 2: to cook sweet potatoes: Peel and cut sweet potato and boil until you can pierce a knife or fork with it.
3.  You want to make sure your sweet potatoes are smooth with no lumps. If you do not have an immersion blender: put the sweet potatoes through a ricer or process in a food processor until smooth (no chunks).
4. Turn your oven down, (or preheat if you boiled your sweet potatoes) to 350 degrees.
5.Spray a 8X8 baking pan with cooking oil and dust with flour
6. Create a double boiler by heating water in a sauce pan and placing a medium glass or stainless steel bowl over the sauce pan.  Melt the chocolate chips and coconut oil stirring occasionally, until smooth.  Whisk in the cocoa powder and chocolate syrup until smooth.  
6.  Add in the Stevia, sugar (or honey), vanilla, sweet potato,whisked eggs. Mix together. If you did not use a ricer or a food processor to make your sweet potatoes smooth, use an immersion blender in the bowl to mix all ingredients. Blend until smooth, make sure there are no sweet potato chunks.
7.  Add in the almond flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Mix together.
6.  Pour in the mixture to a greased 8×8 glass baking dish, place in oven and turn down oven to 325 degrees
7.  Bake for 30-35 minutes until you can poke a toothpick in the middle and have it come out clean.
8.  Let it cool and enjoy.

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