Help with Kara's Fabulous Beany Brownies?
 

Made these the other day, ran across a few problems.

1- didn't have food processor and thought an electric beater would work. Well not so much, but after a lot of spoon smashing and adding ingredients and repeatedly blending, it got pretty smooth, there were some chunks of beans, but weirdly enough the baked product made it seem like nuts or something added. So I just wanted to say that in case anyone else here hasn't tried the recipe because they lack a food processor. The extra manual work is totally worth it!

2- could not find the SF caramel syrup so instead made the mistake of melting a few more squares of unsweetened baking chocolate than the recipe had called for with some Nuvella (a splenda equivalent). I think I should have just used SF maple syrup, which I do have, as a replacement, 'cause I probably wouldn't be able to taste the maple in it.

3- I don't use agave nectar, so I used an equivalent amount of Nuvella, which is advertised for use in baking. It's in a big zip bag like Splenda? And it tastes delicious by itself, I actually ate a spoonful when I bought it, it's made from the same stuff Splenda is.

Well after tasting the batter, it seemed bitter from the unsweetened baking chocolate, so I added more nuvella and tasted the batter. It tasted bitter still, but better so I baked it.

Also I added more water to the batter like someone suggested under the brownie post, which was a GREAT idea, the brownies were so moist and awesome.

The only problems is, it tasted too bitter, what could that be? I think the nuvella must lose some sweetness as it bakes, 'cause my cheesecake I made last week turned out to be unsweet. The bitterness is maybe the unsweetened chocolate?

How can I use the Nuvella instead of agave nectar and make it turn out okay? I already know next time I will either go to walmart to get the SF syrup, or just use maple.

The day after, the brownies tasted better, but still bitter. I still like them, don't get me wrong, I just am trying to pinpoint where the bitterness is coming from.

The recipe is FABULOUS, it looks like brownies, and has this AMAZING texture, I can't believe it's beans. My only trouble was the bitterness which had to be from my recipe tweaking.

That said, this like the most unique, AWESOMEST recipe ever! I just have to figure out (with you guys help) how to tweak it. I could hardly believe I was consuming something without fat and flour!

Are you using a brownie mix or are you mixing everything from scratch? I make bean brownies by blending the beans with a brownie mix and they turn out fine.
Can you post the recipe you used so we can look at it together?

Adding in more unsweetened chocolate squares to replace a liquid sweetener substitute would make it very bitter indeed! Also, the maple syrup substitute would have been lovely (the maple flavor would be good even if it did come through!). In such recipes, using some artificial sweetener and some natural sweetener improves the flavor/sweetness, so the bitterness could be compounded by the fact that you used all artificial sweeteners too.

Try it with the same subs (liquid sweetener for liquid sweetener) and without other alterations and maybe it will be good! ;)

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/dess...-brownies.html

There's the recipe Chickybird, but I can't use brownie mix on the SBD. :-) My problem was with the sweeteners and dark chocolate, I messed up the recipe when I tried to tweak it at home. Thanks though, I appreciate your response! :-)

Passionista, thanks! Gonna try that tomorrow, I bought some more beans. Will definitely use the maple syrup this time.