These sweet, tart, Date Glazed Lemon Brownies are a unique citrusy treat. Gluten-free, oil-free, sugar-free, and fruit-sweetened.

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One day a couple months ago, my mom came home with a recipe for lemon brownies. She's a big lemon fan, so she was pretty excited to try a lemony treat. Of course, the recipe was a 'traditional' brownie recipe. So it had flour, eggs, butter, and sugar.

My mom is gluten-free and she knew that I could take the concept of lemon brownies and "work my magic" to turn them into a plant-based recipe with no gluten, sugar, eggs, or butter. I took on the challenge!

I did some thinking and decided to adapt a black bean brownie recipe that I've made before. The brownies, however were the easy part. The recipe that my mom brought home also had a glaze. Glazes are difficult to replicate because most glazes use powdered sugar. If you use organic powdered sugar, you can easily make a vegan glaze. But that doesn't make it healthy. I needed a way to make glaze that would still use only fruit as a sweetener.

My typical fruit sweetener of choice is dates, so I decided to use dates and cashews to make a sweet lemon glaze. So yes, the glaze is pink (from the dates) but it makes this entire recipe fruit-sweetened!

Let's talk ingredients!

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Ingredients

• Black Beans. Often I use sweet potatoes in my brownies, but I decided to go with beans for this recipe to reduce the time and effort required. No need to bake a sweet potato when you can just open a can of beans! Plus, this means extra plant-protein and fiber!
• Buckwheat Flour. My flour of choice these days. It's completely gluten-free and creates a more cake-like texture than oat flour.
• Cocoa Powder. Of course these wouldn't be brownies without chocolate!
• Date Syrup. A delicious fruit sweetener.
• Walnut Butter. You can use any neutral nut butter you'd like (so basically anything except peanut butter). I like using my Toasted Walnut Butter because walnuts are awesome for brain health.
• Lemon Juice and Zest. For amazing lemon flavor.
• Lemon Extract. It just so happened that the day I made this recipe I went to this incredible grocery store near my house. They had all sorts of extracts in their baking aisle. I knew I was going to make these Date Glazed Lemon Brownies so I grabbed some extract. It was actually pretty cheap -- I was excited! If you don't have lemon extract or can't find any, don't worry. You can definitely make this recipe without it and your brownies will still taste very lemony. BUT if you can get some, lemon extract will give your brownies an incredible lemon flavor!
• Chocolate Chips. Optional, but they add some texture and additional chocolate flavor to the brownies.

Date Glaze

• Raw Cashews. Cashews make the base of this glaze. We'll soak them so they get soft and they'll create a thick, creamy icing.
• Date Syrup. Again, a delicious fruit sweetener.
• Lemon Juice and Zest. For lemon flavor.

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How to make Date Glazed Lemon Brownies

To make these brownies, start by soaking the cashews in boiling water. If you do this while you make the brownies, they'll be soft when you want to make the glaze.

Next, add all the brownie ingredients, except the chocolate chips, to a food processor and process until smooth. Then, stir in the chocolate chips.

Pour the mixture into a parchment-lined cake pan and bake for 25 minutes. When the brownies are done, take them out and let them cool. Meanwhile, you can make the glaze.

Process all the date glaze ingredients in the food processor. It will take several minutes for it to get smooth, be patient.

When the brownies are cool, pour the glaze on them. Cut, serve, and enjoy!

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Recipe Prayer

God, thank you for this food. Thank you for the family and friends we get to share it with. Let us use this food to bring us together. Amen.

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Tried this recipe?

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