These brownies low-fructose and gluten free. Sweetened with dextrose and baked with a combination of almond flour and white rice flour, they have a wonderfully fudge-like texture.
This recipe has been a long time in the making. I started working on it last fall, I think, and got frustrated and gave up. I just couldn’t get it to work. Well, sometimes it’s good to step away from something that isn’t working out for a while. When you go back to revisit it, you can look at it with fresh eyes and get it figured out. I’m glad that’s what I did, because I finally came up with a low-fructose and gluten-free brownie that tastes awesome!
Like I’ve said before, I don’t really know if chocolate has fructans or not, but I don’t seem to have much of a problem with it. It’s the sugar in chocolate that I have to be careful with. These brownies are made with unsweetened chocolate, but then sweetened with powdered dextrose. So if you can tolerate chocolate (but not the sugar in chocolate), then this recipe is for you.
What I was finally able to figure out is that a combination of almond flour and white rice flour works the best. Last fall when I was experimenting, I would either use all almond flour or a white rice flour blend (with potato and tapioca starches). The almond flour brownies were too light and spongy and the white rice flour blend brownies were too dry. This week I decided to try a mix and it worked perfectly. The almond flour keeps the brownies moist and the rice flour adds a little weight to make them “fudgier.”
It you can’t eat nuts, I did test these out using just white rice flour (no other starches to dry it out) and it seemed to work very nicely. Check out the note below the recipe for a nut-free version.
print recipe
Low-Fructose Fudge Brownies
Ingredients
1 cup powdered dextrose
1/2 cup blanched almond flour* (see note below for nut-free version)
1/4 cup white rice flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 1-oz. squares unsweetened chocolate
Directions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease an 8″ x 8″ square pan.
- In a medium bowl, combine the dextrose, flours, baking powder and salt.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and vanilla.
- In a large saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate together over low heat. Remove pan from heat and add the egg mixture, stirring until thickened, like pudding. Add the flour mixture until stir until smooth.
- Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, just until the middle is set. Be careful not to over-bake.
- Cool completely and cut into squares. Enjoy!
These look so good. I was wondering if I could share this recipe on my blog giving you full credit and a link back to your blog ofcourse.
Elle
http://bodybyzen.blogspot.com/
Sure, that's fine. Thanks!
Hi Dianne,
I'm so incredibly pleased to have discovered your blog. I have just very recently started my own blog documenting my journey to finding health and wellbeing. Ive read your story and I myself have had very similar experiences. Ive discovered in the past year that a slew of food intolerances have been responsible for my poor health and the addition of a pesky dairy allergy! However, this discovery has proved to be a blessing in disguise as I have never felt better in my entire life! The main reason I am so excited to have stumbled across your blog is that I have been on a mission for the 6 months to discover appropriate sweeteners for my baking. Fructose is out. Artificial sweeteners not only cause me a mountain of gastrointestinal upset, but make me uncomfortable as they are so processed and unnatural. Ive been subbing with Rice Malt Syrup & Glucose Syrup but find that as a baker, there is only so much you can do to attempt to create STABLE masterpieces substituting with liquids. Enter POWDERED DEXTROSE! How did I not know about this before!? I am so excited to purchase this product tomorrow and give it a try. Any tips for substituting would be greatly appreciated. Again, thank you so much, discovering your lovely blog has made my morning!
– Lasche
I'm glad you are enjoying my blog and finding it useful! Some tips about using dextrose: it is about 25% less sweet than sugar, so you will need to use more. For example, if a recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar, I would use 1 1/4 cups dextrose. Also, baked goods made with dextrose brown faster than with sugar, so you will need to bake at a lower temperature. Hope this helps and I hope dextrose works for you!
nice post