Whole Wheat Brownies | Healthy Chocolate Brownies
Chocolate Brownies get a healthy makeover with the use of whole wheat flour and jaggery powder. These are definitely going to be a regular bake in your house. The whole wheat brownies are one of the best healthy kid friendly dessert recipes!
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Here I am welcoming the New Year 2021 with one of the recipes, which has been in a huge demand ever since I started doing and sharing my healthy baking journey. It is the Healthy Chocolate Brownies. My version is made using whole wheat flour and jaggery powder.
2020 has been a physically and mentally draining year for so many of us because of the lock-down. But, by the end of the year, I think everyone has learnt the virtues of patience, hope and finding happiness in the small things in life. Year 2021 has started with the hope of COVID-19 vaccination, so let’s keep our fingers crossed for it’s success.
Coming back to the first bake of the new year, it was so much fun to make these healthy whole wheat brownies, made double chocolatey with cocoa powder and chocolate chips. As with many other bakes of mine, this one is a refined flour free bake, and also there is no refined sugar used here because of the addition of jaggery powder. So, that makes these as one of the easy healthy homemade brownies.
How do you make these Whole Wheat Brownies aka Healthy Chocolate Brownies?
Making these healthy brownies is a simple step-by-step process, as listed below. Also, to make these brownies, I have adapted this recipe by Cafe Delites. If you see the original recipe, Karina has used an 8 inch square pan for the brownies, and I would also highly recommend you to use the same. If you are like me, and have just the 9 inch pan at hand, rest assured, be prepared for not-so-thick brownies. But, in the end taste matters, and we had enjoyed having these brownies, no matter the thickness.
Since everyone doesn’t have all the baking pans sizes available at all times, so it might be good to have some know how on how to adapt a recipe to different baking pan sizes. Here is an amazing article by Food52 explaining in detail the math behind the baking pan sizes and also, how to adapt your recipe as per the pan you have available.
Healthy Brownies Method (Step by step – With pictures)
- Take the melted butter in a bowl. Add in the vegetable oil and jaggery powder. Whisk everything together till everything is blended evenly, this will take around a minute.
- Add eggs and vanilla extract and mix again. Wet ingredients mixture is ready.
- Using a sieve, sift together the whole wheat flour, cocoa powder and salt. This is required to remove any clumps from the dry ingredients. Once sifted, with a light hand, gently fold in the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients. Do not over-mix the batter at this stage. I have used hand whisk, but I would highly recommend doing it with a spatula or a spoon.
- Add 1/4th cup of chocolate chips at this stage and again fold the chips gently in the batter.
- Preheat oven to 350 degree F (or 175 degree C). Grease an 8*8 inch baking pan with butter/oil and lightly dust with whole wheat flour. Or you can even line the pan with parchment paper. I have used 9*9 inch pan here, but if you want thicker brownies, I would highly recommend 8*8 inch pan. Pour the batter into the greased/lined baking pan, and smoothen the top. Sprinkle rest of 1/4th cup of chocolate chips on top of the batter.
- Bake the brownie batter in the preheated oven for around 20-25 minutes. If you like fudgier brownies, remove the brownie at around 20 minutes. I removed the pan at 24 minutes, so the brownies were less fudgy. Remove the baking pan from oven and set aside to cool for around 5-10 minutes. Remove the brownie from pan, and slice it into 16 squares.
- Healthy whole wheat chocolate brownies are ready to be served warm, or you can even serve them hot topped with cold vanilla ice cream and/or melted chocolate. Store the brownies in the refrigerator for around a week, or freeze them for upto 3 months. Reheat in microwave before serving for the perfect taste and texture.
Substitutions & Tips to bake these healthy homemade brownies
- Sweetener – You can even use unrefined cane sugar in place of jaggery powder. These alternatives provide healthier form of sweetener to the baked goods. But, if none of these is available, you can even go ahead and use regular white sugar.
- Please do not over mix the brownie batter after adding the dry ingredients.
- For fudgier textured brownies, bake them for lesser time. You can remove the pan from the oven at around 20 minutes.
- I have baked the brownies in a 9*9 inch baking pan. But if you want thicker brownies, I would highly recommend 8*8 inch baking pan.
Also, continuing the tradition, here comes the 59th recipe under My Julie & Julia Project. For those who don’t know, I had started this project under which I had planned to post 100 recipes from my kitchen by the end of the year 2020. But, due to 2020 being the year of drastically changing priorities, I am continuing it further this year. So, here is the Recipe #59 for you all.
Also, I have uploaded the video of these Healthy Brownies to my YouTube channel. Please do check out the video and do subscribe to my channel for more such healthy baking recipes. You can even connect with me on Facebook and Instagram.
If you like this recipe, do check out the recipe of this Whole Wheat Double Chocolate Cake, which has similar healthy ingredients as this recipe, but it is amazingly soft and fluffy. For now, let’s get going to the recipe of our favorite healthy whole wheat and jaggery chocolate brownies!
Whole Wheat Brownies | Healthy Chocolate Brownies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Butter unsalted, melted
- 1 tbsp Vegetable oil I used Avocado Oil here, you can use any neutral oil
- 3/4 cup Jaggery powder
- 2 Eggs
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 cup Whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup Cocoa powder Unsweetened
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 cup Semi-sweet chocolate chips I used 1/4th cup for mixing, and 1/4th cup for sprinkling on top of brownie batter
Instructions
- Take the melted butter in a bowl. Add in the vegetable oil and jaggery powder.
- Whisk everything together till everything is blended evenly, this will take around a minute.
- Add eggs and vanilla extract and mix again. Wet ingredients mixture is ready.
- Using a sieve, sift together the whole wheat flour, cocoa powder and salt. This is required to remove any clumps from the dry ingredients.
- Once sifted, with a light hand, gently fold in the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients. Do not over-mix the batter at this stage. I have used hand whisk, but I would highly recommend doing it with a spatula or a spoon.
- Add 1/4th cup of chocolate chips at this stage and again fold the chips gently in the batter.
- Preheat oven to 350 degree F (or 175 degree C).
- Grease an 8*8 inch baking pan with butter/oil and lightly dust with whole wheat flour. Or you can even line the pan with parchment paper. I have used 9*9 inch pan here, but if you want thicker brownies, I would highly recommend 8*8 inch pan.
- Pour the batter into the greased/lined baking pan, and smoothen the top. Sprinkle rest of 1/4th cup of chocolate chips on top of the batter.
- Bake the brownie batter in the preheated oven for around 20-25 minutes. If you like fudgier brownies, remove the brownie at around 20 minutes. I removed the pan at 24 minutes, so the brownies were less fudgy.
- Remove the baking pan from oven and set aside to cool for around 5-10 minutes.
- Remove the brownie from pan, and slice it into 16 squares.
- Healthy whole wheat chocolate brownies are ready to be served warm, or you can even serve them hot topped with cold vanilla ice cream and/or melted chocolate. Store the brownies in the refrigerator for around a week, or freeze them for upto 3 months. Reheat in microwave before serving for the perfect taste and texture.
Video
Notes
- Sweetener – You can even use unrefined cane sugar in place of jaggery powder. These alternatives provide healthier form of sweetener to the baked goods. But, if none of these is available, you can even go ahead and use regular white sugar.
- Please do not over mix the brownie batter after adding the dry ingredients.
- For fudgier textured brownies, bake them for lesser time. You can remove the pan from the oven at around 20 minutes.
- I have baked the brownies in a 9*9 inch baking pan. But if you want thicker brownies, I would highly recommend 8*8 inch baking pan.
Shalini
Hi, am looking for a whole wheat brownie recipe with 55% Amul sugar free dark chocolate that I hv in hand….how can I substitute chocolate chips in ur recipe with that…how much more jaggery to be added as chocolate to be used is sugar free…pls also specify if any other changes r to be made? Tx in advance
Kanwaldeep Kaur
Hi Shalini. I have never personally tried this replacement. But as per my understanding, you can replace chocolate chips with same amount of unsweetened chocolate (~ 70-80 grams here).
And regarding the sweetener, I would suggest you to increase jaggery powder in the recipe, one tablespoon at a time, till you reach the desired sweetness preference. I think extra 3-4 tablespoons of jaggery powder would suffice, but do try and test it after adding extra one tablespoon. Hope it helps. Do let me know how they turn out for you.
Pavitra
This whole wheat brownie is super hit at my place…thanks a lot for the recipe.
Kanwaldeep Kaur
Thank you so much Pavitra for your feedback. I’m so happy to hear that this was a super hit at your home 🙂