Vegan, Gluten-Free Gooey Avocado Brownies

A couple of announcements before we begin here.

1. This recipe is heavily inspired by the flourless and fudgy avocado brownies of the Detoxinista. She, in turn, was inspired by Alton Brown's cocoa brownies. I love how food can be a collaborative, community activity even when you're cooking alone! Credit is due, however, to both of these people and their amazing brownies.

2. These brownies are NOT super sweet. At least not in the conventional sense. So if you're looking for something that's going to be sugary and dessert-y in all the naughty ways, this is not your recipe. Go back to Alton Brown for that one.

Now, back to business. Or, skip to the recipe here.

You all know I'm a healthy baker, whenever possible. I never use processed sugar and try to bake vegan. I am not vegan and I love eggs, but I like the challenge of finding substitutes when I'm baking. This recipe is a step above my normal healthy dessert-ing efforts.

Recently, a good friend of mine was faced with a Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis for her not even three-year old son. She is currently in the process of learning about diabetes, cutting his carbs and sugar, and still trying to figure out a way to provide him with the nutrients necessary for a developing toddler. I decided to do a little research of my own and see if I could help.

One of her main challenges was getting him enough variety of healthy carbs. The kid eats pretty much everything, but in terms of vegetables, he's mostly a broccoli and cauliflower type of little man. I mean, that's pretty amazing actually. It's a rare three year old who can happily eat broccoli with every meal. That being said, there are a lot more vitamins and minerals out there to consume and they can't all be found in stalk vegetables. This is where I decided to try baking with Arbonne Essentials Greens Balance.

The Greens Balance is a product I use in my smoothies and cooking, but I wasn't sure it would work so well for baking. When I saw the idea for an avocado brownie, I figured that one green thing deserved another and I went for it. With only 5g of carbs per serving (this recipe uses two servings), it is very diabetes-friendly. It's also jam packed with 5,450mg of green, blue, red, yellow and Omega-3 fruits, veggies, and seeds. It contains ingredients as varied as spirulina and elderberry as well as more conventional things like pumpkin and parsley. Plus, I can report that even though I am slightly allergic to mango (an ingredient listed), there is just a little bit of so many things that my allergies haven't been set off.

Since I was already in the business of adding more healthy products to the recipe, I figured a little extra protein couldn't hurt. I tossed in a scoop of Arbonne Essentials Daily Protein