Chocolate Squash Brownies

I’ve gotten four squash: two acorn and two butternut squash that I’ve received as part of my CSA boxes over the last month or so. Problem is that it really isn’t the time of the year for squash, at least not the typical ways I make it

• Mushroom and Squash soup
• Squash bread

So need a different way to use up some of the squash. Plus, I’ve been trying really hard not to buy “treats” at the store. So I decided to make a sweet treat with the squash. I started out with two possible recipes

• Butternut Squash and Chocolate Brownies
• Acorn Squash Cookies

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I really wanted to try out the brownies first because they looked easier to make. I cut open an acorn squash and baked it on a parchment for 60 minutes, 30 minutes per side. Then I scooped out the cooked squash into a bowl so that I could make sure it was well pureed. I used my immersion blender to puree the squash.

Unfortunately, I didn’t pay super close attention to the recipe when I grabbed the pan to bake it off. It wasn’t until I poured all the batter into the 9×9 pan that I realized – oops think this was supposed to go into a 9×13 pan. The corrective measure was to bake it twice as long 50 minutes instead of 25. All good texture wise.

Trying to be diabetic spouse friendly I subbed baking Splenda for the sugar. I’ve done this before with other desserts and it worked just fine. In this case though I came to the realization that any recipe which requires more than 3/4 cup of sugar just can’t be made with Splenda (even baking Splenda) and taste right. I’m going to have to figure out the sugar to agave nectar conversion ratio and try that instead.

Strengths – super moist brownies, good texture, easy to make.

Improvements – thumbs down on splenda substitution, the chocolate flavor wasn’t rich enough, nuts necessary.

I’m likely to try another variation of these again because I’ve got more squash and I think the issues are correctable. Hopefully the revisions will make them more to my liking.