Grain-Free Mint Chocolate Brownies

“These are a treat,” I said to Oliver after taking a bite. Fudgy on the bottom, creamy in the middle, and even more chocolatey on top, these brownies are rich all the way through.

If you like York Patties, or Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, or Andes Mints, these brownies are for you. And before I get to far… they are grain-free, gluten-free, and nut-free. Plus, they’re sweetened with honey!

Mint and chocolate is a favorite combo of mine, and when I was day dreaming of holiday baking these stayed in the forefront of my mind. They feel super festive! It wasn’t until after I had made them that I was swiping through images of a cookbook my mom made of her favorite recipes and I found mint brownies nestled in there. Somewhere in the back of my mind I suppose I remembered her brownies…

Let’s start at the bottom: the brownie base is made of the same batter used in these strawberry cheesecake swirled brownies. It is a very chocolatey, batter that calls for coconut flour and a LOT of cocoa. The result is one fudgy brownie!

The next layer is a sweet mint cream cheese frosting. Most mint brownies call for buttercream here, but I’ve never been a fan of buttercream, and even as a kid I preferred cream cheese frosting. Nothing’s changed on that front! (For extra festive-ness, you can stir in a drop or two of green food coloring if you like.)

The topping is a simple chocolate ganache, making a chocolate mint sandwich that even looks a bit like an Andes Mint!

When you bite through all three layers it is rich, sweet and melt-in-your-mouth delicious… a total treat! (One night we had these with the Mint Chip Ice Cream from CoolHaus. 😍)

Grain-Free Mint Chocolate Brownies

Published December 6, 2018 by Caitlin Sherwood

Serves: 16   |    Active Time: 1 hour

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Ingredients:

Brownie Base:

1/2 cup melted unsalted butter or coconut oil

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup honey

2 eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup coconut flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

Mint Filling:

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup honey

1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract

Chocolate Ganache Topping:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter or coconut oil

2 tablespoons half-and-half

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a 8x8 baking dish with parchment paper.
2. In a small sauce pan, combine melted butter or coconut oil, cocoa powder, and chocolate. Heat over low heat, stirring until most of the clumps have melted. Remove from heat and allow to sit until entire mixture is smooth and melted.
3. Scrape mixture into a mixing bowl. Using electric beaters, stir in honey. Add eggs and vanilla and beat again. Mixture should begin to thicken. Add coconut flour and salt. Beat until smooth and no clumps remain.
4. Spread batter in even layer in prepared baking dish.
5. Bake for 20 minutes, until brownies are slightly puffy, and a knife comes out clean when inserted in the middle. Allow to cool for completely before topping with mint filling.
6. Mint filling: while brownies are cooling, beat together cream cheese, honey, and mint until smooth. When brownies are no longer warm to the touch, spread cream cheese mixture over top in an even layer. Place brownies in fridge, covered, for at least one hour (or overnight! Short cutting this time will make it hard to spread the ganache over top and get clean layers.)
7. Chocolate ganache topping: Place butter, half-and-half, and chocolate in a small sauce pan and heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until a smooth ganache is formed. Remove from heat. Spread chocolate ganache over cream cheese mixture and allow to set 10 minutes before slicing into 9-16 squares. Tip: for the cleanest cuts, rinse your knife between each slice.

Grain-Free Sandwich Cookies With Pumpkin Butter

I have been on a kick, going back to old Foraged Dish recipes and taking new photos. It is insanely satisfying to compare the old ones to the new. Progress is difficult to measure day-by-day, but all of those days add up! I’m sure, in three years, I’ll look back at my photos from 2018 and roll my eyes. C'est la vie.

These sandwich cookies were one of my recent victims, and since it is the season for baking and pumpkin, I thought it would be a good opportunity to update the whole post. That means a few updates to the recipe, too:

• Simplified. The original asked for both almond flour and coconut flour, but since 2015 I’ve discovered a much simpler grain-free shortbread cookie using just almond flour. I quite like the texture of the cookies, too! They are a bit chewy, stay together well, and have great almond and honey flavor.

• Drizzled with chocolate. How can you make a boring cookie look a little fancier? Maybe you’re thinking frosting, which is true, but since this cookie is a sandwich I wanted the filling to shine. I drizzled each cookie with chocolate, which was just the right touch!

• Doubled it. More is better right? In this case, there’s no doubt: the original recipe made about 6 sandwich cookies… what was 2015-me thinking?!?! A dozen is much more reasonable (but you still may want to double that if you’re cooking for a crowd).

Once baked, these cookies are stuffed with pumpkin butter, so the end result tastes a bit like pumpkin pie. Perfect match with a cappuccino! But I also experimented with filling the cookies with salted caramel. Oh. My. Goodness. Now that’s a treat! A bit like an alfajore, if you are familiar. I am definitely going to need to make an alfajore recipe now (Foraged Dish style, of course!).

Grain-Free Sandwich Cookies with Pumpkin Butter

Published October 26, 2015 by Caitlin Sherwood

Yield: 12-24, depending on size   |    Active Time: 60 minutes

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Ingredients:

2 cups finely ground almond flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup butter or coconut oil, melted

1/4 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup pumpkin butter

1/4 cup dark chocolate

Directions:

1. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, and baking soda. Whisk until incorporated. Add the melted butter or coconut oil, honey, and vanilla, and stir until a dough forms. Shape dough into a disc (about 1 inch thick), wrap in plastic wrap, and place in fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour to chill.
2. Preheat oven to 325°F. After dough has chilled, remove from fridge. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit your baking pan.
3. On a separate piece of parchment, use a rolling pin to roll dough out to 1/4-inch thickness. Use cookie cutters to cut circles out of dough and place on baking sheet, with at least 1/2 inch between each cookie. Bake for 9 minutes, until golden. Allow to cool.
4. Once cookies are fully cooled, spread pumpkin butter on one cookie, and then use another to create a sandwich. Set aside, and then continue until all of the cookies are sandwiched.
5. Heat the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl for 30-second intervals (string between each!) until chocolate is glossy and smooth. You can also do this in a double boiler (stir frequently). Drizzle melted chocolate over sandwich cookies. Allow chocolate to set before serving cookies.
6. Tip: You can use any sort of jam to fill these cookies! I also made a few with salted caramel sauce and they were SO. GOOD.

Chewy Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies (Gluten-Free & Grain-Free)

If you make any cookie from this blog, let it be this one. I might regret saying that later, but it's how I feel now and what's a blog if not in-the-moment. 

While I've used a lot of nut and seed butters in baking before, tahini is something special in a cookie. 

First let me say that I love thin, chewy, fresh-out-of-the-oven-soft cookies. Gooey. Warm. Indulgence. That what makes tahini ideal: its consistency and fat content allows it to spread out into a thin cookie, and even as the cookies cool they never get crispy. They maintain that soft, chewy bite for days. 

Coconut sugar is also necessary here -- it's not something I usually use, opting for maple syrup or honey in most of my baking - but a crystalized sugar helps to glue the cookies together, so that everything doesn't just fall apart when you pick them up. So you can dip your cookie in a shot of espresso, or a glass of milk or cup of tea. 

Chewy Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Published May 17, 2018 by Caitlin Sherwood

Serves: 20   |    Total Time: 30 minutes

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Ingredients:

• 1 cup coconut sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 
• 1 cup tahini (stirred well)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla 
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup chopped dark chocolate bar (about 2 ounces)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine coconut sugar, baking soda, and salt. Whisk briefly.
3. Add tahini, vanilla, and egg to bowl, and use a spatula to stir until a stiff, sticky batter forms. Fold in chopped chocolate.
4. Optional: place bowl of batter in the fridge for 10 minutes to allow dough to stiffen a bit more.
5. Using your hands, roll dough into spheres by the heaping tablespoonful. Place spheres 2 inches apart of a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and flatted slightly with your fingers.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies have spread and are golden. Cookies will still be quite soft when you remove them from the oven. Allow them to cool at least 10 minutes before attempting to move them to a cooling wrack or a plate.