Ingredients

100 g Medjool dates, pitted and roughly chopped
2 ½ ml bicarbonate of soda
60 ml boiling water
80 ml coconut oil, melted
2 eggs
45 ml honey
5 ml vanilla extract
100 g almond flour
40 g rye flour
30 g cocoa powder
1 ¼ ml baking powder
a pinch of salt
100 g 70% dark chocolate, roughly chopped
250 g blueberries

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Grease and line a 20-cm square baking tin with parchment paper.
Place the dates and bicarbonate of soda in a heatproof jug and cover with the boiling water. Set aside for about 15 minutes until softened.

2. Add the coconut oil, eggs, honey and vanilla to the dates. Using an emersion blender, purée the mixture until smooth.

3. Sift together the almond flour, rye flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. If you have any coarse bits of almonds left in the sieve, tip them in too. Add the date purée into the dry ingredients and mix to combine. Fold through the chocolate and blueberries.

4. Spoon the batter into the tin and smooth over. Bake for about 23–25 minutes, depending on how gooey you like your brownies. Cool in the tin before cutting into squares. Serve at room temperature.

Cooks note: There is a small amount of rye flour in the recipe, which will not be safe for celiacs or completely gluten intolerant. Which can be a problem.

Of all the brownie recipes I’ve made over the years, this is the one I return to most often. I made it for a healthy baking class several years back and we still love it, especially in summer when blueberries are in season. During the class, I remember sceptical eyes gazing back at me as if to say, we think it’s going to taste like wood! Needless to say, skirmishes to fork the last fudgy piece were followed by eye-rolling and soft murmurings.

This recipe is an extract from Bibby’s Kitchen published by Human and Rousseau and retailing for R420 at all good book stores.