Banana Avocado Brownies

You’re in the grocery store checking out the banana selection, and the bunch that has the nicest looking fruit has just one or two too many, but you throw it in your basket anyway because what’s too many bananas, right?  Then you move over to the avocados and choose a few of varying ripeness so you’ll have one ready any day of the week you might want one.  Sound familiar so far?  Fast forward to Saturday and you’re frantically Googling ‘recipes to use up overripe avocados and bananas,’ because time is quickly running out for your precious fruit.

Generally speaking, avocados are a great fill-in for fat-based ingredients (like mayonnaise, butter, or oil) in cooking and baking.  Similarly, bananas are a great substitute for sugar.  Since I had both, I decided I would try my luck at creating a recipe that uses them simultaneously.  #efficiency.

Thus, banana avocado brownies were born! I started by mixing together a mashed avocado and a mashed banana, because those were the two ingredients I knew for sure I’d be using.  Then I grabbed my cinnamon and vanilla, which are my go-to spices whenever I’m baking.  I considered adding a little nutmeg for extra flavor, or even something spicy to play up the savory flavor of the avocado to make a faux Mexican brownie.  I wound up keeping it simple, though, since this whole venture was an experiment to begin with.  I added eggs, which help in any baked recipe to bind the ingredients together, and baking powder to help the brownies rise.  And of course, a generous amount of cocoa powder.  I gave the batter a quick taste (eek raw eggs and all, don’t tell Mom!) and realized that one banana wasn’t going to be enough to sweeten the whole batch.  I decided to add honey instead of more banana, because I didn’t want the banana flavor to completely take over.  Since the batter was pretty wet, I also added some almond flour to thicken it up.  Lastly, and certainly not leastly, I added a generous amount of chocolate chips.

And there you have it, brownies with only 10 ingredients that also incorporate your overripe fruit!  (See full recipe and instruction list below).

Ingredients:

1. One medium banana, mashed (100g)
2. One medium avocado, mashed (100g)
3. 2 large eggs
4. Cocoa powder (3 tbsp)
5. Vanilla (1 tbsp)
6. Baking powder (1 tsp)
7. Almond flour (1/2 cup)
8. Honey (3 tbsp)
9. Cinnamon (to taste)
10. Chocolate chips (5 tbsp)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Combine all ingredients except for chocolate chips in a medium bowl.  You can use a mixer or mix by hand for this recipe.  Lightly grease a muffin tin (I used a mini-muff tin, which yielded 24).  Once baked, this is a light batter, so you have two options regarding your chocolate chips – if you stir them into the batter prior to baking (which is what I did) you will have to very carefully remove the muffins from your tin later on, as they might break where the chips change the consistency of the batter.  Your second option is to pour the batter into the muffin tins and then place the chips on top.  Bake for 12 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Allow to cool completely before removing from the tins.

So you can make whatever size muffin/brownie you want, the macros for the entire batch of batter were: protein – 31; carbs – 141; fat – 66.5.  Just divide those numbers by whatever your recipe yields to get your macros per serving.

The ingredients can definitely be played around with, for example vegan chocolate chips instead of regular ones, or regular flour instead of almond flour. I’d love for you all to try this recipe and even play around with it and let me know what you create!

Stay fit and fresh, all!