Zucchini Brownies

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Incredibly moist and fudgy, dark and decadent brownies that are made with NO butter or oil, whole wheat flour, and have a good heaping of zucchini hiding inside that you can’t even taste. Perfect to trick your kids into having a healthy dessert- and grown ups will LOVE these zucchini brownies too.

I like my brownies dark, fudgy and wicked. I didn’t think I’d like them made with whole wheat flour and zucchini. Boy, was I wrong. I had leftover zucchini from this amazing recipe, and I could have gone the typical zucchini fritter route but I did a little google search and stumbled upon this gold mine of a recipe. My daughter can smell a dessert that’s been made healthy from a mile away. It’s actually uncanny how she can tell if I’ve used whole wheat flour or some other trick. This fooled her! And because of that and how incredibly tasty these are, these will become a regular in my house.

The cast of ingredients:

You need grated peeled zucchini. I had leftover cores from the stuffed zucchini recipe I had made a few days before that I had stored in a ziploc bag in the fridge. I just processed them in a food processor until finely grated , but you can just peel and grate whole zucchini.

You also need eggs, vanilla, coconut sugar or regular, baking soda, salt, whole wheat flour (or regular), chocolate chips, cocoa powder, and yogurt. The original recipe calls for applesauce but I didn’t have any on hand and I saw a reviewer had tried using yogurt instead so I did the same. Worked out perfectly.

The original recipe also calls for Dutch processed cocoa powder (usually European brands and darker in color than natural cocoa powder), but I used Hersheys natural cocoa powder and again, turned out great. I wouldn’t skimp on the sugar here, the semi sweet chocolate and cocoa powder combined give a really intense chocolate flavor and you need that 3/4 cup of sugar to balance it out.

The method:

So easy. No mixer required, no creaming, no melting. You basically stir together the wet ingredients (eggs, vanilla, yogurt) then add the coconut sugar, mix and let it sit 5 minutes for sugar to dissolve. In a separate bowl, you mix together your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder). It’s a good idea to sift our cocoa powder if it has any lumps. You then add wet to dry ingredients, stir until just combined, then fold in grated zucchini and chocolate chips. Don’t over mix so you don’t get tough, cakey brownies. The only thing that might give you any trouble is grating the zucchini which is why using a food processor is a great hack.

The bake:

The oven should be preheated to 180 C or 350 F. Your prepared batter goes in an 8 inch square pan that’s been lightly greased and lined with parchment paper. The original recipe calls for baking 30-35 minutes but I baked this only 20 minutes. You basically bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist sticky crumbs. Not wet goo, nor should the toothpick be dry. The reason I checked earlier than the stated time was that some comments on the original recipe said their brownies were cakey, and I one culprit of cakey brownies is over baking. For me 20 minute was perfect, The zucchini brownies were fudgy and glorious, with slightly cakier more set edge pieces. Allow to cool before slicing, or just dig in warm- no judgement here!

Storing your brownies:

I stored these in an airtight container in the fridge since they have more moisture than regular brownies. Any time I wanted a piece, I’d microwave it for 10 seconds and eat it warm and gooey. They’ll last 2 days tightly wrapped at room temperature or 5 days in the fridge.

If you like chocolate, you might be interested in these recipes:

Dulce de leche Brownies

Unbelievably Moist Chocolate Bundt Cake

Chocolate Loaf Cake

For more healthy desserts:

Healthy Blueberry Crisp

Chocolate Date Truffles

Chocolate Avocado Smoothie Bowl

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