HEALTHY RECIPE: Sweet Potato Brownies

About 4 weeks ago I started trying to eat more healthily, I stopped eating so much processed food and started eating more natural foods. This prompted me to search the internet for tasty recipes that didn't involve loads of specialist ingredients. I came across a healthy food blog called Deliciously Ella - it's the most fantastic blog if your looking for vegan, gluten free, healthy recipes! On Deliciously Ella I came across a recipe for Sweet Potato Brownies, my first reaction was disgust and then I became intrigued. The 'brownies' looked so moist (my least favourite word in the world!) and delicious, so after a rubbish day at work last week I decided to do some therapeutic baking. Normally I would have picked up lots of chocolate and baked chocolate muffins or cookies but I'm trying so hard to stick to this healthy eating that I ignored my want for real chocolate and baked these healthier brownies instead.

I can't believe how good they are, baring in mind they don't have any chocolate in - just cocoa powder. They are not too far off a real brownie, obviously they aren't quite as yummy as a triple chocolate brownie but for the health benefits and over half the calories - they are a perfect alternative. I found some of the ingredients Ella uses quite difficult to source at 5pm on a Thursday afternoon, so this version is Supermarket friendly as I got all these ingredients from my local Tesco.

What you'll need:

(recipe adapted from Deliciously Ella)

3 Medium Sweet Potatoes, peeled and chopped into chunks

2/3 of a cup of Ground Almonds

1/2 a cup of Rice Flour (available in the 'World Food' section of Tesco)

1/2 a packet of Dried Dates

2 tbsp Cocoa Powder

5 tbsp Maple Syrup

What to do:

1) Preheat the oven at 190'C. Put the chopped sweet potato into a microwave proof bowl, cover with cling film and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Check how soft the sweet potato is, mine needed another 4 minutes before it was 'squashable' with the back of a knife.

2) Blend the dates and now soft sweet potato in a food processer, until it's completely smooth. This combination is surprisingly tasty and sweet! Put the rest of the ingredients in with the sweet potato/date mix and combine well.

3) Put into a lined baking tray and cook for around 20 minutes. My brownies took more like 35 minutes, so just keep testing them - once a knife comes out clean then you know they're cooked.

4) Allow them to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove them from the tin and cut into whichever size you would like. Personally I prefer smaller brownies of this mixture, as it is quite rich.

Have you tried any 'healthy' versions of our unhealthy favourites?

Feel free to leave me a comment :)