Chocolate Beetroot Lavender Brownies Recipe. Vegan.

Some recipes are so complicated and they use oil, which is highly calorific and refined sugars and eggs and so on but these brownies are completely Vegan, refined sugar-free and have no oil or dairy products in and are even made with gluten-free ingredients. They are immensely tasty and feel really indulgent on the tongue and as long as you are sensible, you can enjoy them on a calorie controlled diet and still lose weight, just as I have been doing.

I am really, really proud of these moist and sophisticated brownies, where a lot of thought has gone into the ingredients chosen and we have specifically used Fairly Traded products, with organic and sustainable ingredients sourced from local and independent wholesalers.

Just a note about the way I set out my recipes:
I find the way that recipes are conventionally written,  are not the way that I like to follow them! Normal procedure is to mention the pre-heated oven somewhere in the middle when you need to put the batter in, instead of mentioning the pre-heated oven as one of the first things you should do. So, here's my recipe, written as I and I am sure, any logically-minded person would like to follow it.


1/ Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

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

3/ Place the following ingredients into a blender:

1 x Cup of Sliced Cooked Beetroot

1 x Cup and 2 x Tablespoons of Buckwheat Flour

1 x Cup of Raw Cane Sugar

Half a Cup of Cocoa powder.

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/2 a teaspoon of Bicarbonate of Soda

1 x teaspoon of Doves Farm Gluten Free Baking Powder.

1 x teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

A pinch of ginger.

1 x a cup of water.

4/ Blend it all together, I use the smoothie setting on my blender.

5/ Smash up a bar of Seed and Bean Lavender Chocolate and stir it into the mix. (if you want another flavour, then just replace the Seed and Bean Lavender Chocolate with something else, I sometimes use Lemon and Cardamom, also from Seed and Bean and sometimes I use a Lemon, Ginger and Black Pepper bar from Equal Exchange).

6/ Then pour the whole mixture into the brownie tin and cook for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, carefully cover the pan with foil and cook for another 10 minutes. 

Don't forget, you can buy all the ingredients you need in our shop, online and instore.

Enjoy but if you can't be bothered to make them yourself, just pay us a visit in Shepton Mallet and we will make them for you.

Nutrition Facts
Servings 9.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 206
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 1 g	1 %
Saturated Fat 0 g	0 %
Monounsaturated Fat 0 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 0 mg	0 %
Sodium 154 mg	6 %
Potassium 0 mg	0 %
Total Carbohydrate 35 g	12 %
Dietary Fiber 2 g	8 %
Sugars 24 g
Protein 2 g	4 %
Vitamin A	0 %
Vitamin C	0 %
Calcium	0 %
Iron	0 %
* The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. The values here may not be 100% accurate because the recipes have not been professionally evaluated nor have they been evaluated by the U.S. FDA.

Low Cal Choc Cup Cake

Ooo, nearly lost a really good recipe there, someone asked me to make a carrot cake in a cup this morning and a healthy one at that, I thought I'd just tweak the Low Cal Choc Cup Cake recipe that I created last week and make it into a carrot cake. Whoops, I'd forgotten how it went, so kind of improvised and out came a soggy mess from my nuked cake, tasted amazing but it really wasn't presentable to the customer! Luckily, I have been using My Fitness Pal to help me lose weight and having eaten one of the cup cakes last week, I had to log all the ingredients in the recipe, so thank goodness, I have got a record of it after all. So, I am blogging it straight away for your nuking pleasure.

I will also be writing about the carrot cake recipe, as I don't want that lost forever either!

This Low Cal Choc Cup Cake is created in the microwave, it's a specially and individually created cake made on demand, with a small amount of ingredients, so there is no wastage and each little creation is absolutely fresh and warm from the oven.

There are two tablespoons of sugar in this recipe, which is quite a high amount, plus the sugar in the chocolate that is used, however, as you make each individual cake, you can experiment with the taste and needs of each member of your family. 

Next time I make this recipe, I am going to try just using 1 Tablespoon of sugar. The really good thing about this recipe is that it has 31% of your daily iron contained in it, which is great for me, as I realised I was finding it hard to get iron on a Vegan Diet. There is no Vitamin C in there, so make sure you drink or eat something with Vitamin C to help your body process the Iron. There is, however, very low calcium in this recipe, which is good, as Calcium inhibits the body absorbing the iron.

I think I might create an Orange Chocolate Cup Cake Recipe, so that you don't need to worry about the extra Vitamin C, to help absorb the iron! 

Low Cal Choc Cup Cake

1/ Choose a medium sized mug, with no silver or gold decoration on it.

2/ Put the following dry ingredients into the mug and give it all a stir:

2 x Tablespoons of Doves Farm Gluten Free Plain Flour

2 x Tablespoons of Traidcraft Raw Cane Caster Sugar

2 x Tablespoons of Essential Cocoa Powder

1/4 Teaspoon of Doves Farm Baking Powder

A pinch of salt

3/ Then add the following wet ingredients. Stir it all in well, making sure that you reach all the dry bits down the bottom and on the sides:

3 x Tablespoons of Almond Milk

1 x Tablespoon of Apple Puree

1 x Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract.

1 x Teaspoon of Apple Cider Vinegar

4/ Take half a chunk of  Divine Dark Chocolate 70% and put it into the mixture, help it to sink down a bit by spooning mixture from the sides to cover it. 

5/ Put the mug into the microwave and cook on high for 1 minute and 30 seconds. You might find you have to experiment with your microwave times, to ensure the perfect result.

6/ Wait for a bit, for it to cool down, as when it comes out, it is very hot and then ENJOY!

I like to drizzle a little melted chocolate on top but that does add a few extra calories, about 12 extra, if you use half a chunk of Dark Divine Chocolate.

Nutritional Information:

Nutrition Facts
Servings 1.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 173
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 5 g	7 %
Saturated Fat 2 g	8 %
Monounsaturated Fat 0 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 0 mg	0 %
Sodium 153 mg	6 %
Potassium 25 mg	1 %
Total Carbohydrate 37 g	12 %
Dietary Fibre 4 g	18 %
Sugars 17 g
Protein 3 g	6 %
Vitamin A	1 %
Vitamin C	0 %
Calcium	6 %
Iron	31 %
* The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. The values here may not be 100% accurate because the recipes have not been professionally evaluated nor have they been evaluated by the U.S. FDA.

Easy Vegan and Gluten Free Blackbean Brownies with NO OIL!

So, I am still on a plants only diet, since Veganuary January 2017 but did you know, you're not automatically slender, if you only eat plants? There are some products that are 'accidentally vegan' and I have been enjoying those, like the original Oreos and some others that I can't remember now because they are so off my radar, as I am now concentrating on a vegan diet and a healthy one. 

I still want to enjoy tasty things though, like Brownies! The Black Bean Brownie recipe that I have shared on this blog is in itself quite healthy but I am using My Fitness Pal to count those calories and make sure that I am getting the right nutrients and I have seen that oil in cake adds quite a few unnecessary calories. Swapping in apple puree instead of oil doesn't work in all recipes but it works in this one and gives the brownie a truffle-like dessert texture. I ate mine whilst still warm and enjoyed moist pockets of melted chocolate, however, I can imagine it also tasting great if kept in the fridge, as a cool dessert.

So, here's how to make your very own batch of easy vegan black bean brownies with no oil!


1/ Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

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

3/ Place the following ingredients into a blender:

400g can of drained black beans

Two tablespoons of Divine Cocoa powder.

1/4 of a cup of Essential Applesauce.

1/3 of a cup of Chantico Organic Agave Sweetner 

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 x teaspoon of Taylor and Colledge Vanilla Bean Extract vanilla essence 

1/2 a teaspoon of Doves Farm Gluten Free Baking Powder.

1/2 a cup of gluten-free Oats

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

4/ Blend it all together, I use the smoothie setting on my blender.

5/ Smash up a 100g bar of Divine Chocolate and stir it into the mix.

6/ Then pour the whole mixture into the brownie tin and cook for 24 minutes. 

Don't forget, you can buy all the ingredients you need in our shop, online and instore.

Enjoy but if you can't be bothered to make them yourself, just pay us a visit in Shepton Mallet and we will make them for you.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
calories 173
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 6 g	10 %
Saturated Fat 3 g	16 %
Monounsaturated Fat 0 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 0 mg	0 %
Sodium 15 mg	1 %
Potassium 128 mg	4 %
Total Carbohydrate 25 g	8 %
Dietary Fiber 4 g	16 %
Sugars 13 g
Protein 5 g	9 %
Vitamin A	0 %
Vitamin C	0 %
Calcium	1 %
Iron	6 %
* The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. The values here may not be 100% accurate because the recipes have not been professionally evaluated nor have they been evaluated by the U.S. FDA.