NUMMY FOR MY TUMMY: BLUE RIBBON DARK CHOCOLATE BROWNIES

My love of baking all started with cooking brownies from scratch. When I was about 12 years old, my mom let me experiment in the kitchen with one of her cookbooks, which I still use. My favorite thing to make was brownies. Melting the chocolate into the butter, slowly adding all the ingredients together forming a decadent batter was just mind-blowing to me. It was so much better than pouring flour from a box into a bowl and adding oil…bleck!

Over the years I began to come up with my own brownie recipe, which became a huge hit with friends and family. Unfortunately, I made it all with conventional white flour and once I was diagnosed with Celiac my conventional brownie days were over. However, I LOVE BROWNIES and I wasn’t gonna let a little white flour stand in my way.

After a few rounds of experimenting with flours I came up with a grain-free recipe I really loved and most importantly it received my daughters seal of approval. She likes them so much that she suggested I entered them in the local county fairs baking competition. Well, I did and took first place in the 2013 OC Fair “Special Diet – Brownies & Bars” category…I’m still shocked!

INGREDEINTS:

1-1/8 c. tapioca flour
¼ c. coconut flour
½ tsp sea salt, fine
¼ tsp baking powder
1-1/2 c. Dark Chocolate, chopped (up to 70% Dark Chocolate)
1 c grass-fed butter
1 c coconut sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 eggs

INSTRUCTIONS:

Pre-heat oven to 350F (175C) and grease a 9" x 12" pan (8x8 if you want a thicker cakier brownie)
In a medium bowl, blend tapioca starch, coconut flour, sea salt and baking powder, set aside
In large a double boiler, melt the butter (or coconut oil) and dark chocolate
Remove from heat and stir in the sugar and vanilla extract, blend well
Add eggs one at a time, blending thoroughly
Fold in flour mixture ¼ c. at a time, stirring removing any lumps
Pour batter into greased baking pan and bake 25-30 minutes and allow to cool for an additional 20 before digging in