Vegetable Love: Bugs Bunny Brownies

I had so many reasons to develop this recipe. First, the Fat Free Vegan Blog is having a Vegetable Love contest, in which recipes can be submitted if they include one or more vegetables. The blog post for the contest is http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2009/02/vegetable-love-2009.html. The Fat Free Vegan Blog is really good--especially since I have to avoid anything with lactose.

Second, I am in an experimental process with a friend of mine who claimed spinach and chocolate wouldn't taste good. This recipe doesn't use spinach, but that claim led me to a series of baked goods that involve a vegetable. Her task, and now the task of my Senior Composition class, is to identify the hidden vegetable.
This one is somewhat of a muffin or brownie--I baked them in mini muffin tins, but they are somewhat muffin-y and some what brownie-ish. Anyhow, I will call them Bugs Bunny Brownies (alliteration is always awesome). So now you know the secret ingredient!

I used my food processor to mix the wet ingredients, but it could be done with a kitchen aid, a beater, or good ol' elbow grease.

In the food processor I combined:
1 1/2 cups mashed, cooked carrot (this was about 4 large carrots, cooked until very soft)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup baking cocoa
Egg substitute for 3 eggs (I usually use flaxmeal: For each egg, 3 tbsp. water added to liquid and 1 Tbsp. flax meal to the dry ingredients, but other egg substitutes would work)
2 tsp. vanilla

In a mixing bowl I combined:
1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt

I added the wet mixture to the dry mixture and mixed just until the all the flour was moistened.
I then melted:
4 oz semisweet chocolate chips
and stirred that melted chocolate into the batter.

I spooned the batter into mini muffin tins and baked them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes. It made about 50 little brownie bites. The second time I made these, I added 2 tsp. instant coffee granules to the liquid mixture and made little mini bundt cakes as well as some pie tin shaped that I filled with soy ice cream. Yum yum!

The result:like many of my vegetable baked good creations they were so wonderfully moist! And good and chocolate-y. I got thumbs up from mom and dad and then took a plate to my Senior Composition class where they disappeared immediately.

Also, the second time I made these I had some leftover carrots so I did some experimenting with flavors (didn't have enough to actually make something). My next project will be a peanut butter carrot pudding. Sounds weird--I grew up thinking peanut butter and carrots was normal, but I keep getting strange looks when I eat them together. Anyway, I have a great idea for a super healthy dessert, I'll just have to figure out the proportions.