Oat Flour and Beet Brownies

I had a cup of pureed beets in the freezer and wanted to use it up. I had the idea of pairing it up with chocolate because I have seen a couple of such recipes. So I was browsing through one of my favorite books “Deceptively Delicious” and my eyes fell on the Brownies recipe. It used 1/2 cup each carrot puree and spinach puree. I thought why not use the 1 cup of beet puree instead. I’m glad that I did because the brownies turned out very tasty.
Yield: 16 pieces
2 Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or over a very low flame. I melted the chocolate in the microwave oven, in a medium size bowl. Take care while doing so or else the chocolate will get burnt. So increase the time little by little. Stir it well, it should be smooth.
3 In the same bowl, combine the beet puree, sugar, cocoa powder, margarine, vanilla and unsweetened applesauce and whisk it well. This mixture should be smooth and creamy.
4 Stir in the oat flour, baking powder, chopped walnuts and salt with a wooden spoon.
5 Pour the batter into the prepared pan and baked 35-40 minutes. I checked it after 35 minutes and felt that it was not done. Brownies should spring back when touched, but it did not. So baked it for another 5 minutes.
6 Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. Since I lined the pan with aluminum foil I lifted it after an hour and I cooled it on a wire rack. After another 2 hours I was able to cut them into neat squares without any trouble. If baking it directly in the pan, it will take some more (actually a lot more) time for the brownies to cool completely and getting neat pieces will also be difficult.
2 Oat flour is readily available in stores. I didn’t have that in hand, so I powdered quick cooking oats in a blender. Be sure to powder it finely, sieve it a couple times.
3 You can use all purpose flour too instead of oat flour.
4 To prepare beet puree you can either buy canned beets and blend it smoothly in a blender or do like what I did. I peeled and cooked the beets in a pressure cooker. Cut into small pieces once cooled and then blend it. I had prepared this a month back. So I put it in cup, covered with plastic wrap and froze it. To use the puree, thaw it in the fridge overnight and by the following afternoon it should be alright.

These oat flour brownies go to my Wholegrain Baking Event – Oats.
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November 3rd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Hi Madhu where can I find oat flour I looked in walmart I did not find.
Asha, you can find it in the regular grocery stores itself, most probably in the organic aisle or in Whole Foods, Trader Joes. You can very much make it at home too. Simply process quick cooking oats in a food processor and sift it before using. For this recipe I too made it at home only.