Our Favorite Guilt-Free Brownies

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp vanilla
• ½ cup of whole wheat flour (or substitute gluten-free flour)
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp baking powder (may substitute for gluten-free)
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 2 eggs
• 2 bananas
• 1 cup pureed dates (made from approx. 10 pitted dates)
• ½ cup oats
• ½ cup peanut butter (optional)
• ½ cup walnut pieces (optional)

Directions:

To begin, place dates in a bowl and fill with water until the dates are all just barley covered. Let sit for 1-2 hours. After you have soaked your dates preheat the oven to 350. Start by peeling bananas and mashing them into a bowl until there are no large chunks (personally I enjoy having a few chunks) After mashing the bananas add the vanilla, salt, baking powder, and cocoa powder. Mix these in finely before adding other wet ingredients. Next take the dates and place them into a food processor and mix until it becomes like a heavy syrup (some piece of the skin may remain whole in the mixture but this is ok.) Add in the pureed dates, eggs, and flour to the batter. Stir completely and then add in oats gradually, mix well. Lastly, add your peanut butter and stir until ingredients are completely blended. Place the batter into a well greased (you can use coconut butter for a healthy substitute to butter or oil) pan. Place in the oven for 30-35 minutes checking every 10ish minutes to make sure you aren’t overcooking it. Remove pan from oven and enjoy your wonderful guilt free brownies!

Serves about 8