You’d be amazed that just TWO simple ingredients are needed to make these ‘brownies’ which are the perfect cure to any sweet tooth out there- Ridiculously fudgy, gooey on the inside and soft! Made with no boxed mix, butter, oil, flour or sugar, these 2 ingredient flourless brownies are naturally paleo, vegan, gluten free, dairy free and sugar free!
‘Brownies’.
That is what we need to keep in mind here.
MY OTHER RECIPES
The apostrophes.
When I first shared this 3 Ingredient flourless brownie recipe, I made it a point to reiterate that they are most definitely NOT those bakery-style brownies oozing with chocolate and providing the crackly tops which make your heart swoon.
I called them ‘brownies’ because of their amazingly soft and fudgy, gooey texture. Once you followed the directions of allowing them to cool completely and enjoy them from the fridge in their firmed state, you’d be pretty impressed. Saying that, if you aren’t a fan of bananas, you probably wouldn’t be a fan of them. The overripe bananas lend both natural sweetness and the soft texture, similar to butter or oil (which are two key ingredients of traditional fudge brownies). However, that particular version included a third ingredient, one which was added in later on.
So how did this come about?
Story (of my stupidity) time!
The original ORIGINAL premise of this recipe was actually from a failed (and silly) attempt at making banana soft serve. I read somewhere that blending a frozen banana with cocoa powder would give a more chocolate style ‘ice cream.’ Because I was both impatient and lazy, I hadn’t any frozen bananas on hand. For some reason, I believed that using normal, non-frozen bananas would be fine. I’d just freeze the blended product for a few minutes.
FAIL WHALE.
There is a reason why frozen bananas are necessary for banana ‘ice cream’ and that was the lesson learnt. After allowing it to freeze for around 30 minutes, I had an ice block which was near impossible to enjoy. I allowed it to thaw out completely before taking a gamble and throwing it in the oven. After around 15 minutes, I removed it and saw it had seemed to firm up slightly and had a ‘baked’ texture. I allowed it to cool completely before sampling this failed creation…and was impressed. While they were definitely not brownie brownies, they did have a VERY similar texture and ridiculously gooey and fudgy. As such, the poor man’s (or woman’s) sweet tooth cure was created- These healthy flourless 2 ingredient ‘brownies’!
These healthy flourless two ingredient ‘brownies‘ are your quick fix to a chocolate or brownie craving without any of the sugar, flour, butter, oil OR boxed mix! They literally use two ingredients and have the most amazingly fudgy, ooey gooey and soft texture which really do resemble the infamous dessert. Saying that, the banana taste is very evident so if that’s not something you’d enjoy, this recipe isn’t for you. If you don’t mind the taste of banana, you can opt for my original 3 ingredient flourless brownie recipe which is complemented by almond butter or cashew butter, which balances the overpowering banana flavor. Because of the two ingredients used here (banana and cocoa powder!), they are completely paleo, vegan, gluten free, refined sugar free, grain free and dairy free!
HACK! This wrecks the 2 ingredient aspect of it, but an easy way to balance out the overpowering banana flavor (besides the aforementioned nut butter option) is to top with a small handful of DARK chocolate chips. Along with the dark cocoa powder, it amps up the richness factor and is so satisfying. Either the chips or chunks are both winners.
Make these healthy 2 ingredient flourless brownies and the next time you have a failed frozen endeavor, bake it.
Don’t. This was a fluke.
- 3 large overripe bananas, mashed
- 1/4 cup dark cocoa powder
- Chocolate chips (optional)
- Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly coat an 8 x 8 baking dish with cooking spray, butter or oil and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, add your mashed bananas and cocoa powder and mix very well until a thick, chocolate batter remains. Stir through chocolate chips, if desired, and pour into the greased baking dish. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until firm on top (the middle will still seem undercooked- This is perfect). Remove from oven and allow to cool completely in the baking dish. Once cooled, refrigerate for an hour or so. Cut into pieces and enjoy!
- Brownies are best kept in the refrigerator, especially for the best texture. These are freezer frienfly too.
Healthy Grain-Free Double Chocolate Blondies
Healthy Flourless Cookie Dough Sandwich Cookies
Healthy Paleo Cookie Dough Sandwich Cookies
What is your (poor man/woman’s) sweet tooth fix? I have several times resorted to baking chocolate…100% cocoa.
Have you ever had a baking fluke before?
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Okay, I pin it immediately! This is really clever recipe, Arman.
Thanks so much, Marina! 🙂
So easy! So clean. I love it
Thank you!
Poor mans sweet tooth fix would be a scoop of peanut butter. The regular skippy with the HFCS and all that 🙂 sooooo good! Every other time I bake it’s a fluke so I’d consider myself a professional hahaha Have a great day Arman
I LOVE the regular skippy’s- Extra crunchy too!
Putting in 1/4 cup of STEVIA in my flourless pumpkin pie muffins turned them into GASOLINE muffins. Had to dump them because they were inedible! :'( I would have to say peanut butter and dark chocolate EVERY SINGLE TIME. Never EVER gets old!
Oh no! Hope you try this out! 🙂
Love it! You and your flukes 🙂
I am such a bad baker, so no baking flukes here. But Idefinitely have cooking flukes all the time. Maybe because just winging it is my kitchen philosophy ;-P
I have definitely eaten baking chocolate in the past too to fix a craving. My fav though is spooning nutella straight from the jar.
OOOO Nothing beats nutella from the jar- Growing up, I’d freeze blobs of it to fool myself it was chocolate.
It didn’t work.
Hah…usually my baking flukes are more like baking doh’s. They aren’t exactly salvageable. Well done on this one, though, mate. Now my next request is 1-ingredient banana bread. #MakeItHappenPlease
Totally happening- You peel a banana and close your eyes and pretend it’s banana bread.
TWO ingredients? these I have to try! Poor wo/man’s sweet tooth for me has to be… chocolate syrup out of the bottle, or cheerios eaten out of the box…
ohhhhhh chocolate syrup!!!!
Yum! Funny how that works with just two ingredients. I saw somebody on IG post a brownie recipe with just bananas + cocoa a few weeks ago, too.
It is, isn’t it Miss.Polkadot.
Yes, this recipe of mine has been copied multiple times- It’s the downside of blogging!
Seriously? This works!? Two ingredients!? I need to try it just so I can believe it (don’t worry – I’d believe anything you told me).
But damn I need to find dark cocoa powder. I’ve never seen it sold anywheerreeeeee.
Absolutely- Such a game changer! (and ironically, a recipe ripped off by so many people from me!)
If you can find ‘Droste’ brand cocoa powder, it’s very similar!
I’m going to try these … do you think these are suitable as brownie muffins and if so, what might be a more suitable bake time and temperature? 325F at 8 – 10 mins?
Hi Alicia! I’m so sorry, I’ve never tried it as muffins- I find them working so much better in a pan 🙂
First try for these today before I did the blueberry muffins for the first time just after. They are cooling now so too soon to tell how successful I might have been with them. I am forced to use a mini B&D toaster oven for now, and I used Hershey’s Butterscotch Chipits instead of chocolate chips as that was all I had. i will update when I have them complete, cooled and tasted one! I just LOVE my Nordicware Scone pan – it is very versatile – I have made scones I in it as well as quiche, baked eggs and some baked veggie dishes too!
ohh butterscotch chips would be amazing in this!
Well the butterscotch chips would have been amazing had I used the right pan I believe. I used an old 8 x 8 inch pan and the mix was def not enough using the 3 bananas. Maybe my bananas were truly not LARGE ones…or something. The end result is in the fridge and tastes okay but is way too skinny. My batch using the 3 Ingredient recipe (including the nut butter) was awesome…so I think I will be going back to that and using the butterscotch chips in the next batch. 🙂 Live and learn. Maybe had I made a double batch I would not have had the skinny version! LOL
Oh yes, butterscotch chips are awesome any time … even in my hand! LOVE ’em!
Made these last night and loved them! I was actually surprised how much I liked them, I added some chocolate chips, but really didn’t need them, perfect treat. Mine were really thin, probably less than half the height of yours, next time I will double or make them in a smaller pan.
Oh fantastic! Yes, I usually use a smaller pan, purely to enjoy thicker brownies 🙂
Amazing recipe. It’s definitely a keeper. I am really surprised the way they turned out to be (as I used only two ingredients!)I expected them to be bland. However, they were delicious and I just loved them. I made them in a muffin pan and baked them for half the amount of time. I really loovvvvee your blog and I’m going to be one of your most faithful followers haha. Keep up the good work!
Love from Canada.
Leann! What a lovely comment- Thanks SO much for your kind words and for following along- It means so much 🙂
I have one question, because I tried them with cacao powder, but it turns out that I have intolerance for cacao, I wanted to ask if I can substitute it with carob powder? I tried once but I added baking powder also and it wasn’t the best result.
Thank you in advance 🙂
Hi Merilin- I’ve never tried it with that, but please let me know how it turns out 🙂
I made these last week and they didn’t turn out as thick as the picture shows. I even used 4 bananas. How did you get yours so thick?
Hi Julie, I used a very small loaf pan so it yields thick brownies 🙂
Can we make it in the microwave oven?
I haven’t tried that, but feel free to see if it works 🙂 I would love to know if it does!
Made these twice now and love them!! Yummy, healthy, and satisfies the sweet tooth! I also put in chopped almonds. Thanks for the great recipe!
That sounds fabulous!