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prune and almond brownies – random recipes #29 – healthy and happy

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… there really only could be one theme for June’s random recipes… i’d thought about being even more specific and asking for high-fibre recipes only but i kind of knew it would be taking liberties, so this month i’d like you all to gather your wonderfully summery, healthy and happy recipes… and there are countless ways you could make your selection… many books dedicate their first few chapters to soups and salads… or maybe you have a stack of diet cookbooks or summer cookbooks… or maybe you could do it by ingredient, choosing a combination of healthy items and then using an app or website such as eat your books, to come up with the recipe… however you chose, it needs to be a recipe that you consider to be healthy or one that makes you happy, the theory being that if it makes us smile and feel good then it can’t be bad for us…

… I was very specific about the recipes I selected for myself… I went through all my cookbooks and looked closely at ingredients that are on my list of ‘must-eats’… obviously there’s a lot of high-fibre stuff in there but I think it’s quite telling that one of the key ‘good’ foods I seemed to lock onto from the list was dark chocolate… strange that…

… but after a lovely rainy day of sifting through cookbooks I pulled together about 35 recipes all that fall under my healthy and happy theme… it was a great thing to do as I now have a bucket-load of yummy ideas from quite a wide range of books such as the brilliant, new Soup Can make You Thin by Fiona Kirk… River Cottage Veg Every Day… Complete Italian Food by Antonio Carlucci and of course the High Fibre Cookbook by Valerie Ferguson which I treated myself to earlier in the week…

prune and almond brownies
as you can imagine, i’ve been eating a LOT of prunes of the past couple of weeks… I actually quite like them but they do become a little chewy and tasteless after a while and I think I was getting prune fatigue… so when my random recipes lottery picker landed on this recipe from Delia Smith’s Vegetarian Collection I wasn’t all that excited… I think one of my lovely well-wishers on twitter had suggested prune brownies and as mentioned above, dark chocolate, prunes and almonds are all on the good food list, it’s as though these were invented just for me… as it happens I haven’t tried them yet, i’m a little scared my stomach’s not quite ready but The Viking tells me they are very good and I think they look damn fine…

makes 18 brownies – 9 of which I have frozen (i’m so good aren’t I?)
I used a 12inch x 9inch baking tray – greased and lined

75g dark chocolate – I used some incredible Fair Trade chocolate from my local Lincolnshire Co-op.
75g pitted prunes – chopped
75g skin on almonds – chopped
150g butter
3 large eggs – beaten
330g demerara sugar
75g plain flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

prep your baking tin and set the oven to 180C

place everything but the butter and chocolate into a large bowl

in a small pan very gently and slowly melt the butter and chocolate and once melted simply pour onto all the other ingredients and combine then pour into your baking tin and bake for 30 minutes.  Let is cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning it out and cutting into squares

the rules for taking part this month are simple:

1 – gather all your healthy and happy books and recipes 
2 – randomly select one book, then open that book at a random page
3 – cook the exact recipe on that page (dietary restrictions / availability / affordability taken into consideration) don’t cheat – you’re only cheating yourself!
4 – post about your recipe on your blog, linking back to my blog, including the random recipes logo
5 – email me the link to your post to dominic at belleaukitchen dot co dot uk
6 – tweet me @belleakitchen including the hashtag #randomrecipes and i’ll retweet all I see.
7 – entry deadline will be Fri 28th June
well go on then, what are you waiting for.. help me get healthy!

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Comments

  1. After making the joke about Prune Brownies I was inspired by your fellow commenter and bought a tin of prunes to make Brownies LOL. Really must make a concerted effort to enter your challenge this month as I really love the theme:-)

  2. I love this theme. I am slightly obsessed with trying to cram loads of fibre into my kids. I could probably be doing with some new recipes. Usually I just bung a load of veg and pulses together.
    I really love the look of the prune brownies. Am certainly going to give those a go. I love prunes especially with rice pudding. 🙂

  3. I find that the secret to baking successfully with prunes is not telling anyone that you have. They eat the product gleefully with nary a thought of “Oh, yuck, prunes!” to color their opinion. Sometimes I choose to tell after. Sometimes I don't. Your brownies look wonderful with their almonds and chocolately richness. I am glad you are feeling a bit better, Dom.

  6. Brilliant! I have a very fibrous ingredient lurking in my cupboard that I need to find a recipe for… I think this is as good an opportunity as any 🙂

  8. This sounds like a great challenge – sorry I ran out of time last month. Hope you're feeling much better, will definitely join in this month 🙂

  10. Can't remember what I was going to say, but I'm glad you've got your blog back in good working order again. Prune brownies sound just fabulous. hope you get to try one soon.

  11. Hope you carry on feeling better and better and that changing your diets works wonders. I'll have to have a think about healthy….

  13. We all need to take heed of your health scare and eat more healthy food. I love all the fibre type foods, but tend to eat them in phases, time for another phase! The brownies look divine, but I think you are right to be cautious

  14. I am gingerly reading this from my own sickbed… After 24 hours of unpleasantness I'm not sure I am ready for prunes, but I'll do my best as soon as solid food and I are friends again!

  15. I'm so glad you are feeling better. The prune and almond brownies look delicious. What I like about brownies recipes is that you can always add something a little different or should I say healthy and they still taste good.

  16. These look great…and even better that they're healthy! The prunes must make them really moist and the almonds add texture…it's nice to see new takes on old classics 🙂

  17. I when I think prunes I naturally think old people/constipation remedy hehehe. But I think I will happily eat them now that they;re in brownies. Definitely gave them a makeover with this one! Healthy brownies are good because you can eat more of them. (I'm not exactly helping you am I? Hah.)