I make sweet treats for my family from time to time, about once or twice a month – a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies, a simple chocolate custard, vanilla mint ice cream. Moreover, I do what I can to make the treats I do prepare for my family just a little bit better for them, too, and something we can enjoy from time to time.
Like these deep, dark bittersweet brownies made all the better with tigernuts. Tigernuts, despite their name, aren’t nuts at all; rather, they’re a small root vegetables. They accounted for as much as 80% of the diet of paleolithic peoples in Africa and the Mediterranean.
Their flavor is mildly sweet, similar to chestnuts, which makes them such a good partner for dark chocolate. Tigernuts are also particularly rich in resistant starch, a fiber, that acts as a prebiotic – nurturing the growth and proliferation of beneficial bacteria in the gut.
These brownies are dense, bittersweet and fudge-like with a beautiful consistency and richness.
Bittersweet Tigernut Brownies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup tigernut flour
- 1 tablespoon Dutch process cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon arrowroot starch
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup coconut palm sugar
- 6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
- 3 eggs
Instructions
- Grease a 9-inch by 9-inch brownie pan, and heat the oven to 350 F.
- Dump the tigernut flour, cocoa, arrowroot starch, vanilla bean powder and sea salt into a small bowl and whisk them together until thoroughly combined. Let the bowl alone while you prepare the other ingredients.
- Fill a saucepan with water and bring it to a slow boil. Set a tempered glass or pyrex bowl over the simmering water to create a double boiler. Melt the butter and sugar together in the top bowl. When the butter melts, whisk it into the sugar until it forms a smooth and uniform paste, then stir in the chocolate. Continue stirring the chocolate into the butter and sugar until it melts.
- Immediately remove the bowl from the heat and beat in the eggs. The batter will stiffen slightly when the eggs are fully incorporated, then beat in the dry ingredients until they’re thoroughly and uniformly combined. Pour the batter into a prepared brownie pan and bake for 20 minutes, cool completely, and then slice and serve.
I love brownies. This is so delicious as dessert! Thanks for sharing.
Hi Jenny,
I love the emails I get from you and find everything informational and delicious! I have read that tigernut flour yields a very grainy texture. How you do feel it works here? I love the idea of tigernut for the reasons you described in your article, especially that it’s also very low carb due to it’s high fiber count.
Many thanks!!!
Diane
Hi Diane,
Tigernut flour does have a gritty texture that is *somewhat* mitigated here, but not entirely.
I have an egg allergy and usually have to get creative with baking. From your experience with Tigernut flour, do you think it would hold up with an egg substitute (ex: 3tbs boiling water + 1tbs flax meal per replaced egg)? Some flours are already great binders and do not rely on the eggs to stay together, while I find other flours are not as stable and really need the egg. I’m about to buy some tigernuts on Vitacost and was tempted to get some tigernut flour as well.
Hi Anne!
That’s tough – I don’t think that this recipe would hold up without the eggs, as tigernut flour is less a binder and more mealy. You could try to experiment, though.