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
- ½ cup tigernut flour
- 1 tablespoon baking cocoa
- 1 tablespoon arrowroot starch
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon finely ground real salt
- 6 tablespoons salted butter
- ½ 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.
