PINTEREST 'XPERAMENT: Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Sugar Free, Healthy Fudge Brownies

(I know I didn't post yesterday, but I have been sick and I crashed. Also in my defense, I had started writing this post, at least 100 words of it)

As many of you know, I'm a little bit of a health nut. I eat a lot of fruits and vegatables and try to enhance my diet with as many superfoods and Shaklee supplements as I can. I don't eat gluten due to an intolerance, and I try to do mostly lean meat. I'm pretty normal where dairy is concerned, but I do actually enjoy the taste and nutritional benefits of almond milk and coconut milk.
You'd think I'd be so skinny. Dang it, metabolism.

Of course, we all have our weaknesses. My most tempting endulgances are dark chocolate, coffee, red wine and cheese. I also love, love, love, pasta, which I now have to consume in it's GF form. Same calories and carbohydrates though, dispite common belief.

I have really enjoyed making up new recipes and trying others out that I have discovered. And of course, where would us mad-scientist, health-nut, foodies be without....
THE PINTEREST

Sometimes these things go well. Somethings they don't.

I've found and successfully tested out some great recipes found on THE PINTEREST. Salad in a jars, cakes in a mug, gluten free cakes in a mug, spaghetti squash pesto, ect, ect.

Sometimes, there are also duds. You guys know what I mean. It looks so beautiful in the pictures, and then you follow the instructions to a T, and yeah, it still looks beautiful, but tastes like a waste of time. Or maybe it doesn't even look right.

Kind of like this: (picture found on THE PINTEREST)

Ok, well, I saw this recipe:


So instantly I re-pinned it, of course. Well, about an hour later, several of my friends had re-pinned it already.

These gluten free, dairy free, sugar free,  fudge brownies sounded too good to be true. But heck, if it was true, I want in on that deal.

So commences this weekend's PINTERST XPERAMENT

View the full recipe and instuctions at the original source, here:

http://shan-made.blogspot.com/2013/11/healthy-virgin-diet-fudge-brownies.html

First I arranged my ingredients:
-Brown Rice Flour
-Honey
-Apple Sauce
-Vanilla Extract
-Coconut Oil
 -Baking soda
-(Agave for the icing, if you want icing)

Yep! That's it! That is one thing I really like about this recipe. Many GF baked goods recipes make you use like three different kinds of flours, xanthum gum, ect. This is a very simple list of ingredients. All super healthy too.


Step one: Melt your coconut oil and mix your wet ingredients

Obviously we like coconut oil around this establishment. One thing I would do differently next time with this recipe is I would have used one of the higher quality varieties of coconut oil, not the super-cheap one. This recipe calls for A LOT of coconut oil, which is why I used the cheap route, but I  think that would have made a big difference in the taste if I had gone with one of the other two brands (I'll let you figure out which one was the cheap one)

 Add your dry ingredients and mix it up!

 Bake for 15-20 minutes!

Catch your adorable husband sneaking a taste.......






So here's the part you all have been waiting for. HOW DID THEY TURN OUT?










Pros:
1. Simple ingredients and instructions
2. Healthy and guilt-free
3. Moist
4. Taste will satisfy your chocolate craving
5. Quick to make

Middle-ground

1. Definitely a dark chocolate taste, which I like, but some people don't

Cons: 
1. They were not miraculously "brownie like."  They were like a semi-sweet, chocolate-flavored bread.
2. Could be expensive, depending on the coconut oil you used*
3. Didn't like the icing*

A note about 2 and 3. The coconut oil I ended up using was one I bought just to make these brownies with. The recipe (with icing using most of it) calls for about 1 and 1/2 cups of coconut oil, so I wasn't willing to use my nicer stuff. However, after tasting both oils by themselves, I realize that a better quality oil would have definitely enhanced my recipe. Since the icing was mostly coconut oil, it ended up tasting sort of waxy (what my cheap coconut oil tasted like). I'm not saying you have to spend a fortune. If you live near a Kroger, their Simple Truth Coconut Oil is a good bet at about 5.99 for a large jar. 

Overall, don't get your expectations up too high for these to taste like a fudgy, brownie, dream. However, if you are trying to be healthy (like me) and don't do gluten or dairy, these will definitely hit your chocolate spot. Not a miraculous Pinterest discovery, but definitely not a fail, either. I would make them again, and recommend them to friends. So check out the original source and give them a try!