Fudgy Sweet Potato Brownies
Dense, dark chocolate brownies built on sweet potato and almond flour. No refined sugar, no wheat, and healthy enough that eating four is not a moral failing.
Fudgy Sweet Potato Brownies
We got inspired by an Instagram video of brownies made from sweet potatoes and bananas. We tweaked and remixed until we ended up with this decadent but healthy treat. We added fat and texture via almond butter and almond flour, and a little extra sweet from maple syrup to balance the heavy duty punch of chocolate we were going for.
The result is a thick, fudgy, grown-up brownie. An earlier draft was toned down for younger palates, but with the cacao brought back up to a full half cup, these land squarely in dark chocolate territory: a genuinely rich brownie that happens to be built on a base of roasted sweet potato.
The sweet potato is doing real work here. It is not a token healthy addition — it is the entire structure of the brownie, providing the moisture and body that flour and butter normally would. Almond butter brings the fat, almond flour gives it a nice chew and crumb, and maple syrup is the only added sugar in the pan.
What They Are Like
Very fudgy. Dense and moist in the way a good brownie should be. The full half cup of cacao makes them seriously chocolatey and properly dark, and the sweetness sits comfortably in the background rather than shouting over it.
The best part is that they are wholesome enough that if you accidentally eat four of them standing over the pan, nothing bad happens.
A Note on Flour
Almond flour is ground nuts, so it carries a lot of fat and does not pull in liquid the way oat or all-purpose flour does. With 450g of sweet potato mash in the bowl, that is a lot of moisture to bind, which is why this recipe calls for a full half cup rather than the third of a cup you’d use of something like oat flour. If you swap flours, adjust accordingly, and expect the bake time to move with it.
Ingredients
- 350g (about 1 1/2 cups) mashed sweet potato
- 100g (about 1 medium) mashed banana, or another 100g sweet potato
- 190g (3/4 cup) smooth almond butter
- 155g (1/2 cup) maple syrup
- 3 large eggs
- 42g (1/2 cup) cacao powder
- 48g (1/2 cup) almond flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 130g (3/4 cup) semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a 9x13-inch pan with parchment paper, letting it come up the sides a bit. This is the single best thing you can do for future you at cleanup time.
- Mix the wets: in a large bowl, whisk the mashed sweet potato, banana, almond butter, eggs, and maple syrup until completely smooth.
- Fold in the drys: stir in the cacao powder, almond flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix until just combined, making sure there are no dry pockets of almond flour hiding at the bottom. Fold in half the chocolate chips.
- Pour the batter into the lined pan, smooth out the top, and scatter the remaining chocolate chips over the surface.
- Bake for 30 minutes. You are looking for a toothpick that comes out with thick, sticky crumbs, not wet batter. Almond flour does not absorb moisture as aggressively as wheat or oat flour, so err toward the full time.
- Let the brownies cool completely in the pan before slicing. This is not optional. The center firms up as it cools, and cutting early gets you delicious chocolate soup.
Notes
- The banana is optional. We use 350g sweet potato and 100g banana because it is what tends to be on the counter, and the banana adds a little background sweetness. Straight sweet potato works fine as long as you hit 450g of mash total.
- For the sweet potato, roasting beats boiling. Roast whole at 400°F until a knife slides through with no resistance, then scoop out the flesh and mash. Boiling waterlogs it and the brownies come out looser. Weigh the mash after cooking, not before.
- We bake these in a 9x13 Pyrex, which gives a moderately thin brownie that sets up nicely in 30 minutes. A 9x9 pan works too and gives a much thicker, even fudgier result; start checking at 25 minutes and expect it to want the full 30 or a little more.
- The full 1/2 cup of cacao makes these properly dark and adult. If you are feeding kids who find that too intense, drop to 1/3 cup and they will still be plenty chocolatey.
- They firm up considerably in the fridge and are arguably better cold on day two. They keep about a week refrigerated, and freeze well cut into squares.
- Between the sweet potato, almond butter, almond flour, and eggs, these are mostly fiber, fat, and protein, with maple syrup as the only added sugar. That is why four of them do not feel like four brownies.