Healthy Pumpkin Brownies
These layered, low calorie, healthy pumpkin brownies are not only fudgy, chocolately and decadent, but they're actually healthy too! Only 15 minutes of prep time, less than 150 calories per serving, and the perfect fall dessert!
Servings: 12 pieces
Calories: 140kcal
Ingredients
- ¾ cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour For a gluten free option use Bob's Red Mill 1:1 Gluten Free Baking Flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp salt
- ⅓ cup brown sugar Increase the sugar if you want more of a traditional super sweet brownie.
- ¼ cup butter
- ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
- 2 flax eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ cup unsweetened soy milk
- ¼ cup unsweetened cacao powder
- 6 tbsp dark chocolate chips
- ¾ cup unsweetened pumpkin puree
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- ½ tsp nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 8×8 baking dish with parchment paper or spray with cooking spray. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside.
- In another bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Then mix in the flax eggs, applesauce and vanilla until well combined.
- Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir together with a spatula just until well combined. Then pour half of this batter into the other bowl. To the first bowl, fold in the soy milk, cocoa powder and chocolate chips.
- To the second bowl, stir in pumpkin puree and the spices.
- Pour the chocolate batter into the baking dish and spread in an even layer across the bottom.
- Then pour the pumpkin batter on top and spread in an even layer.
- Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool to room temperature before cutting and serving.
Notes
- Make sure you use unsweetened pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling for this recipe (they are basically on the same shelf at the grocery store, so be sure to grab the right one!)
- To mix things up, you can add chopped walnuts or pecans to this recipe! You can add 1/4-1/2 cup chopped nuts to the chocolate part of the batter before spreading in the baking dish.
- For a gluten free option, use Bob's Red Mill 1:1 Gluten Free Baking Flour as a 1:1 replacement for the flour in this recipe.
- If you don't have cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, you can use the equivalent amount of pumpkin pie spice (3 tsp total) in this recipe.
- Make sure to use unsweetened cacao powder (not unsweetened cocoa powder) in this recipe. Cacao is less processed and has a milder taste so it works better for these brownies!
- Let the brownies rest before cutting into squares - you'll end up with a much better, held-together brownie that way.
- You can decrease the amount of brown sugar even more in this recipe for an even healthier version -- it'll still be slightly sweet from the pumpkin and chocolate chips!
- Note: These brownies are not overly sweet. They have more of a dark chocolate flavor. If you want a sweeter, more traditional brownie, you will have to increase the sugar (up to 1 cup for a traditional brownie level of sweetness). But that will give each brownie about 27 grams of sugar, making it much more like a traditional brownie, but not as healthy for you!
Nutrition
Serving: 1brownie | Calories: 140kcal | Carbohydrates: 21.2g | Protein: 2.1g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 4.1g | Sodium: 177.1mg | Potassium: 25mg | Fiber: 2.9g | Sugar: 9.8g