White Bean Blondies

I’m an ardent admirer of recipes that incorporate surprising ingredients (by that I mean surprising nutritious ingredients, not like a super ball in my pie). Case in point, if I can successfully tuck zucchini in chocolate chip cookies or beets in a dark chocolate cake, I’m really quite tickled. I love the alchemy of effectively swapping less-nourishing ingredients for nutrition whizbangers, it feels like I’m getting one over on junk food somehow.

With that in mind I was thinking about one of my favorites throw-you-for-a-loop recipes, black bean brownies. I love them, but I’ve been on a blondie kick lately and thought, of course, white bean blondies. I had a pretty good idea of how I’d approach these, but did a little sleuthing on-line to see who else had attempted this. Sure enough, I found a recipe by Missy Chase Lapine–AKA The Sneaky Chef, famous for a book of the same title thats premise is how to hide veggies in cooking for kids. Now that’s a whole other debate we can discuss another time, suffice to say, my kids like beans and I’m not trying to dupe them–I just like turning things on their heads once in a while. Or, to be honest, as often as I can…

I made some adjustments to Sneaky’s recipe–I replaced brown sugar (which is actually refined white sugar with molasses added) with Sucanat (a less-refined sweetener), adjusted the sweetness and added maple syrup to add to that rich, caramel-y blondie flavor, and used white whole wheat flour (whole wheat, but made with subtle-flavored white whole wheat, King Arthur Flour makes it).

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Donna H.

12:50PM PST on Mar 7, 2012

Interesting recipe. Thanks for posting.

send a green star

Michele W.

2:39PM PDT on Sep 5, 2011

Thank you

Cheryl B.

12:01PM PDT on Aug 31, 2011

sounds good

Faith B.

9:29AM PDT on Aug 16, 2011

Hmm... interesting!

Charlene S.

8:11AM PDT on Jun 5, 2011

I wouldn't have ever thought to put beans in brownies. I'll give it a try though.

TQ M.

8:02AM PDT on May 12, 2011

Interesting. I seriously need to start eating healthier (and eating regularly, no skipping lunch!). The hardest part is the junk food so being able to swap in some nutritious ingredients and still have the occasional brownie or cookie is wonderful. I'll definitely have to try these.

Paulette A.

1:51AM PDT on May 12, 2011

Big Shout Out for the wholesome healthy recipes included in this article..keep em' coming!!

Louisa M.

7:45PM PDT on May 11, 2011

Omg yum :D

Loo S.

12:39AM PDT on May 11, 2011

thanks for sharing.

May H.

1:55PM PDT on May 9, 2011