This recipe magically came together – a moment in time when a cooking ‘whoops turns’ into triumph.

I baked sweet potatoes in the oven because they are one of my favourite foods and are nutritional powerhouses. The benefits of sweet potatoes are astounding: full of Vitamin C, which boosts our immune system, as well as Vitamin A and potassium which regulates blood pressure, sweet potatoes can also improve mood. If there is a food you should add to your diet during a global pandemic, I suggest sweet potatoes.

Put them in the form of a brownie that tastes like Deeply Delicious cake and your weekend is pretty well set.

Back to the sweet potatoes that were merrily roasting in the oven. Sometimes I chop them up, toss them in olive oil and spices and roast them to serve alongside fish, chicken or on their own. I also meal prep them  for salads, and slice them to use for my Asian Turkey Burgers Meal prep Sundays tend to involve a big pot of soup cooking on the stove, fish in the oven to turn into fishcakes for the kids and a meal for me, and a healthy muffin on the go.. Multitasking sometimes leads to overdone sweet potatoes. Life happens. 

I had tried several great food bloggers sweet potato brownies in the past, but wanted something easy to remember and also easy to do – I wanted them to be gluten free, dairy free and ideally vegan so anyone could eat them. And here’s the thing: once you stumble upon these brownies your life is literally going to change. 

Hands up for those of you who remember Deeply Delicious cakes your mom would buy for you as a special treat dessert, with the perfectly piped icing (btw – I think this Coconut Whip would be divine on top of these brownies if you are really going for it one night. But just on their own they are the bomb. The kids devoured them. My son, upon discovering that they had sweet potatoes a food he is adamant he doesn’t like, weighed and measured how much he loved the brownies versus their health appeal – the taste of the brownies won.

Know the best thing – these are astoundingly easy to make because they are done in the food processor.  

Ingredients

• • 1 large sweet potato, roasted for one hour at 350-375 (put it in when you are baking something else) 
  • 1/ 3 cup maple syrup
  • 1/3 cup coconut oil, melted
  • 8 dates, soaked in 1/4 cup of water
  • 1/3 cup drizzly almond butter 
  • 1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
  • 2 flax eggs (2 tbsp flax seed mixed with equal parts water) ***
  • 3/ 4 cup rice flour
  • 1/2-3/4 almond meal
  • 1 tsp cinnamon 
  • 1 tsp baking soda

Instructions

Mash cooked sweet potato then add to food processor with wet ingredients. Whirl for 2 minutes until smooth paste forms. Transfer to a metal bowl and add the dry ingredients. Put into parchment lined 8 by 8 square pan. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, until knife inserted come clean. 

*** Flax eggs work really well in this brownie, but if you want to swap in eggs you can. 

Variations:

Orange Chocolate Brownies Add 2 tsp freshly grated orange peel and 1/4 cup freshly squeezed OJ. Increase almond flour to 1 cup. 

Protein Brownies: Add 2 cups of vanilla or unflavoured pea protein powder.

Decadent Can also add 1/2 cup toasted walnuts, chopped dark chocolate or sliced almonds.