The whole grain flours widely available today pack a powerful health punch and add delicious flavors to baked goods. Many of them, like teff, are gluten free, so they won’t “work” the same as wheat flour in many recipes, but that’s why brownies like this make such satisfying playgrounds. First of all, there is very little flour in this recipe. Second, brownies are supposed to be dense and fudgy, not light and airy like a cake, so it really doesn’t matter what kind of flour you use — nut meals, teff, oat have all produced yummy brownies for me. Of course, this is The Best Brownie Recipe Ever, thanks to Alice Medrich and her wonderful book, Bittersweet, so it is hard to go wrong. All I did was swap the teff flour for the wheat flour. Give it a try. Before you know it, you might be making Teff “Polenta” like Heidi Swanson (Super Natural Cooking).
Teff Brownies
- You can use either a natural or Dutch-process cocoa powder in this recipe. Dutch-process cocoa has been treated with alkali and produces a darker colored brownie. Taste the difference, some people prefer the flavor of one to the other. (Be careful substituting in other recipes that have baking powder or baking soda as ingredients, as these leavenings react with the acidity of the cocoa and you can get an unintended result.)
- For chocolate substitutions, please refer to an expert like Alice Medrich and her book, Bittersweet.
- Teff flour is milled from a gluten-free grain indigenous to Ethiopia.
