Date Brownies

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While I enjoy all of my recipes, I’m extra proud of this one. It’s a well known fact that there is a ton of food waste in this country and I really try to pride myself on being someone who doesn’t waste food. Not only to help out the world around us but also because it’s important to our budget too. Now, it does become a lot easier to make sure that you aren’t wasting food when you have animals. If something looks sketchy or is off, it goes to the animals and then those animals are making food for you so it ends up not going to waste. I do try to make sure they are getting scraps and not valuable food though. So when these dates that I got during my pregnancy dried up by the time our daughter was 8 months old, I knew I wanted to do something with them. Where there is a will there’s a way and I created these delicious date brownies to share with you all. 

Dried Dates

The first thing I want to make sure to point out is that these dates are dried. They are not squishy and I could not eat them out of the bag. I probably would have broken a tooth or two. In fact, I was slightly worried about what they were doing to the food processor because at first it was SUPER loud. So loud, in fact, that I hauled my processor out to the garage to get them all ground up. There will be more about this in the instructions but make sure they are nice and dry before using them. If they have too much moisture they won’t grind up well and you’ll have chewy chunks in your brownies. Ask me how I know…

Date Brownies Ingredients

• ½ cup butter
• 1 ¼ cup chocolate chips, divided
• 4 eggs
• 16 DRIED dates (or about 1 ¼ cups ground up)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ⅔ cup flour
• ⅓ cup sugar
• ⅓ cup cocoa powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder

Directions

First, if you haven’t ground up your dates you will want to do that now. The best way to do this is using a food processor. I mentioned it before but it is loud so prepare yourself accordingly. My Ninja food processor worked like a dream for this job (as it always does). You want it to be fine like the picture below.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter and 1 cup of chocolate chips. You can use a microwave or the stove. 

Mix the eggs into the chocolate mixture. 

Add remaining ingredients, except the remainder of the chocolate chips, and mix well.

Pour the batter into a greased 8×8 or pie pan. Both options work really well for this recipe but I’m in love with glass and ceramic pie dishes so I prefer to use them. 

Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips on top. 

Bake for 35-45 minutes or until the middle is no longer jiggly. 

Tips & Tricks

I love using dark chocolate chips for this recipe. It creates such a rich and deep flavor and makes these extra good. I’m a big dark chocolate fan though so take that for what you will. 

You could definitely add more chocolate chips on top or even mix them into the batter too if you’re feeling extra chocolatey. I also think it’s fun to use other types of chips in recipes like this. Some peanut butter, butterscotch, or even just white chocolate chips add a fun touch and a hint of different flavors to the brownies. Plus, they make this recipe look even more beautiful. You know me, I always encourage some creativity in the kitchen.

In Summary: Date Brownies

After eating these date brownies the first time I was really happy to discover another bag of dates in our pantry. They weren’t quite dry enough for this recipe yet so I opened them up and let them sit for a bit. I could have put them in my dehydrator but I wasn’t in that big of a rush. There are plenty of other ingredients lurking in my pantry just waiting for us to use them up! This definitely isn’t the first recipe I’ve created out of a need to use something up, check out my fruit butter cake recipe or this post about using up jam! Plus, I’m sure this won’t be the last recipe that I create out of something that was forgotten about. 

What meals or recipes have you created out of something that you forgot you bought or that you forgot to use up in the first place? I have some coffee creamer in my fridge that I think is going to be the next thing I have to figure out how to use! 

Date Brownies

Low sugar, high chocolate, fudge-y brownies.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Ingredients

  

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/4 cup chocolate chips divided
• 4 eggs
• 16 dried dates ground
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2/3 cup flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup cocoa
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder

Instructions

 

• First, if you haven’t ground up your dates you will want to do that now. The best way to do this is using a food processor.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Melt butter and 1 cup of chocolate chips. You can use a microwave or the stove.
• Mix the eggs into the chocolate mixture.
• Add remaining ingredients, except the remainder of the chocolate chips, and mix well.
• Pour the batter into a greased 8×8 or pie pan.
• Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips on top.
• Bake for 35-45 minutes or until the middle is no longer jiggly.

Keyword chocolate, Date