We recently spending an afternoon cleaning out our pantry and I stumbled upon a few cans of pumpkin that had been sitting pretty since last fall.  I’m a firm believer that pumpkin tastes good any time of year and after some quick googling, decided to whip up a batch of flourless pumpkin brownies.

I’ve actually been a fan of flourless desserts for quite some time now but for whatever reason never make them.  I think my appreciation for the flour-free dessert stems back to when one of my former employers took our staff to a cooking school for a team bonding activity.  We were broken up into teams, and then in true Iron Chef fashion had to create a variety of dishes using a secret ingredient.  We were then judged and could enjoy our dishes as our dinner.  Of course for this challenge the secret ingredient was corn, so I couldn’t eat really any of the dishes with the exception of a flourless chocolate cake that was made for dessert.  So while the rest of my team chowed down on corn-studded guacamole, I enjoyed a dinner of flourless chocolate cake which was oh so delicious.

But back to these brownies.  They are made with pumpkin, egg, cocoa powder and almond butter which adds a nice flavor.  The original recipe called for unsweetened cocoa powder and agave syrup, but I had neither so I used semisweet cocoa powder instead.

The Englishman and I enjoyed these as a Sunday night treat while watching Nik Wallenda walk across the Grand Canyon on a wire.  Did anyone else see that?  So stressful.  Thank god we had brownies to comfort us.

These brownies are a perfect treat when your sweet tooth strikes but you don’t want to go too overboard.  Of course, if you made these into a brownie sundae, I wouldn’t object.

Flourless Pumpkin Brownies (adapted from this recipe)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup almond butter
• 4 egg whites
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup semisweet cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.  In a large mixing bowl add your pumpkin, egg whites, cocoa powder, almond butter, vanilla and baking soda.  Mix until well-blended.

Pour your batter into a greased brownie pan and top with chocolate chips.  Because this is a flourless mixture, the batter will be much thinner than traditional brownie batter.

Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.  Remove from oven and let the brownies cool for 15 minutes before cutting into slices (I didn’t wait long enough for mine).  The brownies will be light and gooey and delicious!