My Delicious Vegan and Gluten-Free Spicy Black Bean Chocolate Brownies

I am posting this yummy recipe, especially for one of our regular customers, who keeps asking me for it. So here is is for you.

I know most coffee shops and restaurants don't usually release their secret recipes but I am going to put them all into a cook book one day, so this is my little method of getting it all down before you actually have to pay for it! (I didn't want to write that bit but our customer Rob, who can hear what I am writing because I keep reading it out, keeps piping up with suggestions in the background and he said that he hopes you buy the book anyway, as a matter of fact, I agree with him).

I wanted to create a brownie that everyone could enjoy, the catch word I like to think of in our shop is inclusivity, (It's probably not a real word but it could be one day). I want everyone to be able to eat the same thing and not worry about allergies, or health issues, or weight gain and so on. So, I try to make things that all the different groups of minority eaters can enjoy together.

The great thing about these Brownies is if you swap the Divine Bar of chocolate for the Hasslacher's 100% Cacao option, they are perfectly suitable for a clean eating paleo diet, with no refined sugar in.

Here we go then:

1/ Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2/ Take a 9" x 9" square brownie tin, line with grease proof paper.

Take one 400g can of drained black beans and put into a blender.

2/ Add two dessertspoons of Divine Cocoa powder.

3/ Meanwhile take 1/4 of a cup of Biona Organics mild coconut oil and put it in a warm place to melt. I normally put mine in a bowl of hot water.

4/ Take 1/3 a cup of Chantico Organic Agave Sweetner and pour into the ingredients that are already in the blender.

5/ Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of Taylor and Colledge Vanilla Bean Extract vanilla essence and 1/2 a teaspoon of Doves Farm Gluten Free Baking Powder.

6/ Take half a cup of gluten-free Glebe Farm Oats and add to the ingredients in the blender.

7/ Add a pinch of ginger and a pinch of chilli, or leave out, or put more in according to your taste!

8/ Pour your melted coconut oil into the ingredients in the blend and then blend. I use a smoothie setting on mine.

9/ Smash up a 100g bar of Divine Chocolate. This has sugar in it, so for a cleaner option, you could use Hasslacher's 100% Cacao. Just use about 8 cubes, as it is very intense, if you love bitter, you'll love it with this chocolate! Then stir whichever smashed up chocolate you have chosen into the mix.

10/ Then pour the whole mixture into the brownie tin and cook for 19 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Get the ingredients now for the Hasslacher's Version

Get the ingredients now for the Divine Chocolate Version.



Nutritional Information.

This recipe makes 9 portions.

The Hasslacher's Version is about 127 calories per serving.
13.5g Carbs Sugars 7g
6.8g Fat Saturated is 5.8g
2.9g Protein
64.6mg Sodium
5.3% Iron


The Divine Chocolate Version is about 165 calories per serving.
20.5g Carbs Sugars 12.7g
Fats 8.7g
Saturated 10.6g
Polyunsaturated 2g
Monounsaturated 1.7g
Trans 2.3g
Sodium 394.4mg
Potassium 284.3mg
Dietry Fiber 3.8g
Protein 3g
Calcium 1.5%
Iron 8.5%

Facing Fats!

Since moving to Shepton Mallet in August 2013, I have been rushing around, doing many, many things. Things like, well, moving to Shepton Mallet in the first place! Running backwards and forwards to London, to run The Ideas Station, inspirational social media workshops for women, with +Cathy Underwood , leading us in a yogic introduction and meditating on believing in ourselves and nurturing our businesses and +Eve Tudor, teaching social media secrets. I've been trying sell my London flat, to make our move absolutely complete, prepared and then opened our 2nd My Coffee Stop, got the Children into local schools, got myself elected as Town Councillor, got heavily involved with the Tadley Place campaign, helped to support Danny the Collette Park Gardener's Mum and won extra funding for Ideas Station workshops in the evening, for the Lower Edmonton area of Enfield.

Do you think I ate healthily in that time?

No! I didn't, I didn't have time, I couldn't focus on food, huh, even though our shop is a coffee and health food shop! The irony of selling protein rich bags of quinoa, whilst scoffing high carbohydrate pasta at home, didn't completely pass me by and the pasta and other high carbohydrate goodies that I've been enjoying didn't pass me by either, they have resolutely stuck to my hips, thighs, bum and breasts. Some of the parts that attracted extra weight from the carbs, also attracted extra attention from my partner, Gunter Hollenstein. I'll leave it to your imagination as to which parts he most enjoyed!

Today, my 10 year old son and I were talking about healthy eating and how it relates to weight and in that discussion, he said, 'Mum, you have let yourself go a bit, you still look lovely but you were a bit more streamlined before.' Hmmmm! I looked into his big wide eyes and felt happy that he could tell me what could be taken as quite a hurtful truth. Telling the truth in that way was good, I kind of knew it myself but had hoped it wasn't noticeable! Ah, that hope was finished.

For around 5 months, I have eaten what I want, without consideration and now I'm considerably more unfit than I was before. I haven't done a Zumba class since August and I really, really miss it!
So, today I have decided, it's back to good clean healthy eating again! Yippee!

I have signed up to a very special online nutrition programme called New Skinny Me run by the ever knowledgeable and caring Amrit.

I'm looking forward to getting rid of my sugar cravings, of feeling pains in my lungs when I drink milk, of getting rid of stomach pains when I eat gluten and of getting rid of the extra weight I'm carrying around, which is making me feel tired and making my back hurt.#

Yes, I'm looking forward to this.
I'm getting myself ready to Attack that Fat!
The change to my eating habits should be for a lifetime, not just a few months, so I want to do something I can stick to.
I have tried low carb and paleo type eating regimes and I love that way of eating food more closely connected to nature.

Do you stay off gluten, or dairy? What are your favourite recipes?
Do you practice clean eating? What tricks have you got for eating out?
Please share your ideas and comment here!
I hope, maybe if you're feeling a bit unfit, that I can help to inspire you to follow my lead.

Be happy and healthy in 2014,
Love Karen. Xx