Ding Dong!
During a certain time of the year, a knock at the door might mean one of two things: Jehovah’s witnesses or girl scouts. If it’s the latter, chances are they haven’t come empty-handed.
Samoas, Tagalongs, Thin Mints.
A few weeks ago, I decided it’d be fun to try and re-create said girl scout cookies, only in a healthier (and raw) form. Currently, I’m brainstorming ideas for how to do the Samoas. But for today, you’re stuck with raw thin mints. In brownie form.
Hope you don’t mind!
Prettier than a picture!
If you saw my thoughts on twitter, please don’t let yesterday’s tweets deter you from trying these raw brownies.
I swear, they taste amazing, despite some opinions on how they look (or what they resemble). You might even notice it’s this the same photo three times in the post; that’s because the other photos looked even worse. The brownies look yummy in real life, but I just could not manage to get a good picture. So when I went to review the photos, my choices were: go back and take another photoshoot or say, “What’s important is the taste” and just post what I had. Lacking the time and desire for more picture-taking, I went with option two. Besides, it gives me an excuse to make these brownies again in the near future so I can provide y’all with some shots that’ll actually do justice to the stellar taste!
As for the floating brownie photo above? I love how—in some professional photographs—everything is blurred except for one part of the photo. Obviously I am not a professional, ‘cause this just looks weird. Oh well, I tried!
Raw Thin-Mint Brownies
- 1 cup walnuts (120g)
- 1 and 1/3 cups pitted dates (230 grams) (I highly recommend Sunmaid, because they’re softer.)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 5 tablespoons cocoa powder
- A few drops pure peppermint extract (depending on how minty you want them… Start with less; you can always add more.)
- Optional: for even more chocolate flavor, add chocolate chips. Or add cacao nibs.
- Optional: tiny dash of salt (I always add this and recommend it.)
Directions: Combine all ingredients, using a food processor. (No need to blend the dates first; I just blend everything all at once. But if you use a Magic Bullet, you might want to do it in batches. I’ve not tried this in a regular blender and therefore can’t vouch for it.)Form into brownies or balls or bars… or even cookie-cuttered shapes!
(I don’t have specific nutritional info for this recipe, but the nutrition stats are probably pretty similar to a Larabar.)
You know what would go well with raw thin-mint brownies?
One of my favorite healthy recipes: Mint-Chocolate-Chip Milkshake.
I’m gearing up for St. Patrick’s Day, can ya tell?
Question of the Day:
Have you ever eaten a Girl Scout Cookie?
And were you ever a girl scout? When I was in girl scouts, you could always tell my cookie order form from all the others: It was the one with an overwhelming number of orders for Samoas (the only ones I liked) and Thin Mints (the only ones my mom liked).
Remember us Weight Watchers…any idea about the nutritional values???? sound so good. I love your goodies.
Hi Patricia,
It talks about the nutritional stats in the post :).
Who knew dates could taste soooo yummy!!!!!
Sounds so yummy! So I tried making some of the treats on here I think it was called pb babies and I used my food processor. And it wasn’t able to puree the mixture I’m just wondering do you usually use a magic bullet or a food processor to make your treats and what brand/model specifically? Thx!!
For the smaller recipes, I’ll use a Magic bullet (the recipes with just 1/4 cup dates). But for bigger, I use the Cuisinart. I think it’s a 10-cup, but it is so old it doesn’t have a model number! It still works really well!
OH. MY. GOD!! I just made these in my VitaMix (it grumbled a bit) and was eating the dough right out of the container. These are truly to die for. My husband told me I should take a picture and send it to you, but yours look better. 🙂 No chunks of nuts left, everything blended into a smoooooooth dough. I used pecans instead of walnuts since the walnuts had gone rancid. Added bittersweet chocolate chips, and 1/4 tsp of peppermint extract which seemed to give it just the right amount of mintiness. When I was able to stop myself from being a total piglet, I pattied them into sizes and shapes about the size of a small peppermint patty and they are sitting in the freezer…Probably be perfect for those late night cravings.
Then I made your mint shake…used coconut milk and chocolate almond milk, three good-sized handfuls of fresh spinach, two large bananas, two tablespoons of cocoa, 1/4 tsp of mint extract and a handful of bittersweet chocolate chips. Didn’t turn that pretty shade of green yours did, but then with chocolate, what can I expect?
Thank-you for those recipes. MmmmMmmm!
lol if you used chocolate milk, I think it sounds… WAY prettier than mine ;).
I took one out of the freezer today…it was even better than when freshly made. It was chewy like candy and oh so yummy!
I made a trip to the store specifically for these ingredients today and they came out PERFECT! I only used 1 tiny drop of peppermint and they were great. That stuff is potent!
These look great and are nearly the same recipe as the Bliss Balls I make – minus the mint 🙂
Same recipe, then roll into balls and coat in coconut. Yummy.
I might just try them with mint now 🙂
Yummy yummy. I loved these and so did my family. Two things I thought of when making them would be to add a scoop of protein powder and/or roll them in chocolate protein powder like a truffle. I did roll them in the powder and they were awesome too. Great recipe 🙂
Katie
I have all the ingredients…except the walnuts…do you think raw brazil nuts would substitute?
sorry, I haven’t tried it so I can’t say…
I made something close to these tonight – using cashews instead of walnuts. They are so tasty!
Thank you so much for the inspiration.
What a fun recipe!!! They look so delicious:-) Take care, Terra