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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Paleo Milk Shake aka the "Brownie Scrambler"


Paleo Milkshake aka "Brownie Scrambler"
My son had an interesting request of me the other day. He wanted us to make a "Brownie Scrambler." What exactly is a brownie scrambler you ask? I asked the same question. It is a drink that he saw being made on a show he watched at the YMCA child watch called Max and Ruby. They take brownies and ice cream and mix them together in a blender and drink them with a straw. At least that's the description I got. So that's what we did today, with our own ingredients, and I have to say, they turned out really good! They taste like a sweet, chocolate and Oreo milkshake mixed together (without all the refined sugars, hydrogenated oils and refined grains of course). Below is our recipe for a "Brownie Scrambler" completely made from scratch and simple ingredients.

Gluten-free Dark Chocolate Brownies (adapted from the Peppermint Brownies Recipe and Elana's Pantry)
16 ounces of Almond Butter (two cups of raw almonds blended with 1/4-1/3 cup of coconut oil in a Vitamix or food processor)
2 free-ranged eggs
1 cup of raw honey
1 tbs vanilla extract
1/2 cup cocao or cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3-ounce bar of dark 88% chocolate

Blend almond butter until it's smooth with a mixer. Blend in eggs, honey and vanilla. Blend in cocao/cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. Chop dark chocolate into pea size pieces and fold into batter. Either grease a 9x13 inch pan or line with unbleached parchment paper (I prefer the paper method, SO much easier to remove the brownies and just cut off the edges to make perfect squares). Pour batter into dish and bake at 325 degrees F for 25-40 minutes until baked through (you will know it's baked through once it "drops" in the center and has firmed up). Cut off the edges of the brownies before cutting the rest of the brownies into small 2"x2" squares. You can either eat the edges or save them for the brownie scrambler recipe below.

Brownie Scrambler
Freeze 1 cup of unsweetened coconut cream in ice cube trays
1 cup unsweetened coconut cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2-1 cup ice
Cut off edges of the brownies from the recipe above - approximately 1.5-2 cups of baked brownies

In a blender or high powered mixer (we use a Vitamix), blend together frozen coconut cubes, remaining unfrozen coconut cream and ice until well blended like a thick smoothie or ice cream (be careful not to add too much ice). Add brownie pieces into the blender and mix on low speed until the brownie pieces are not too chunky to fit through a straw.