A Health(ier) Choice

The other day as I was looking for cake flour, I came across a bag of spelt flour.  What the hell was I doing with spelt flour?  All I can figure out is that I must have bought it by mistake because I cannot imagine the scenario under which I would actually choose to buy spelt flour.   But I have officially decided that this is the summer of using up so I had to come up with something to do with that bag of spelt flour.

After an exhaustive (well, it wasn't all that exhaustive), Google search for cookies made with spelt flour, I settled on a recipe for peanut butter chocolate chip brownies.  Before you get all excited about these brownies, let me just tell you that I made them and they were vile.  They were dry and hard and all the things that brownies shouldn't be.

But I am not one to give up and I still had half a bag of spelt flour, so I got to work.  It became my personal mission to make brownies using spelt flour that would taste good.  No small order, let me tell you.

The recipe below is my take on healthier brownies, although given the two sticks of butter and all the sugar, I'm not sure they really qualify as a health food.  I did use some coconut sugar in place of granulated sugar so I suppose that adds to the healthfulness.  Who knows?  What I can tell you is that these are much tastier than the original recipe and not nearly so hard and dry.

Kate took them to school for the Ultimate Teenage Taste Test and they got high marks.  I'm not sure that was because they were so drop dead delicious or because there were teenagers tasting them and teenagers are always hungry and will pretty much eat anything.

Either way, I'll take the high marks.  For those of you who are into things like spelt flour, I think you'll be really impressed.  You could go crazy and use date sugar in place of the brown sugar.  I didn't go that far, mostly because they didn't have date sugar at Whole Foods and there was no way I was going to schlep around looking for it.

Let me know what you think.

Recipe:  Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Brownies

Ingredients:


1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1-½ cup coconut sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 Tablespoon molasses
4 whole large eggs
1 Tablespoon pure vanilla
3 cups spelt flour
1-½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoons kosher salt
1-½ cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Directions:


Preheat oven to 350ºF and grease a 9x13 baking dish.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and peanut butter together until fluffy.  Add coconut sugar and brown sugar and mix until combined.  Add the molasses, eggs and vanilla.  Mix until incorporated on low speed.  Keeping the mixer on low speed, add the flour, baking power, cinnamon, salt and chocolate chips slowly.  Mix until everything is combined.   Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish.  Smooth the top.

Bake in the center of the oven for 26-28 minutes or until the edges are golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Let cool and then cut into squares.