Spinach Brownies

A large bag of spinach, gathered from the polytunnel before I cleared the overwintered plants a week or so ago, was going a bit limp in the fridge and needed using up quickly – time to make some spinach brownies!

Here is the spinach growing in the polytunnel, with some of the new season plants waiting to be planted.

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This recipe makes a lot of cake-like brownie: the spinach puree helps to make it super-moist. I used a 30 x 23 cm baking tin and American cup measures.

Preheat the oven to 180 C (or equivalent)

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Ingredients

700ml/ 3 cups pureed raw spinach

200g/ 1 cup soft brown sugar

200g/ 3/4 cup salted butter

300g plain dark chocolate, broken into pieces (about 3 cups loosely filled)

4 tsp vanilla essence (optional)

125g/ 1 1/2 cups of cocoa powder

150g/ 1 cup self raising white flour

150g/ 1 cup self raising wholemeal flour (or plain wholemeal plus 1 tsp baking powder)

6 medium eggs, beaten (mine were from the neighbour’s chickens so were different sizes)

Method

First of all, puree the spinach by putting it in a food processor with a little water and processing. I wanted to use up all of the spinach remaining which took 3 full food processor bowls, adding around 2 tablespoon water to each one. (Leftover spinach puree will be frozen.)

Next, put the flours, baking powder (if using) and cocoa powder in a large mixing bowl.

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Melt the butter gently in a pan.

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Add the chocolate pieces and sugar, stirring over a low heat until melted and combined. Remove from heat.

Beat the eggs in a different bowl, add to the mixing bowl and mix thoroughly.

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Pour on the melted chocolate mixture and mix well.

Add three cups of the pureed spinach to the bowl.
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And mix thoroughly.

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Pour into a greased baking tin lined with buttered greaseproof paper.

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Put in the middle of the oven and bake for 30 – 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin on a cake cooling rack for 5 minutes, before taking the cake (still in the paper) out of the tin and placing on the cooling rack until cool.

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Or alternatively put the brownie on a wooden board, cut in pieces and serve warm with cream, ice cream or possibly both …!

Yum.

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The brownie freezes well – cut into portions and pop into a freezer bag or freezer proof glass lidded container.

Whilst this was baking, I cooked a pan full of spinach, torn into pieces, in a little water. This will be frozen to be added to soups or curries.

From this…

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to this!

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