Almost Paleo Energy Breakfast Brownies

Not many of you know this, but I manage the social media for a site called My Recipe Magic.  It was created by the Six Sisters' (my fabulous bosses), it's like a Pinterest inspired place for all things food.  I was on there and found this breakfast brownies recipe from Eat. Drink. Love here, but a lot of the ingredients in the recipe I'm trying to avoid to eat more healthy.  So I thought I'd swap out some of the ingredients with Paleo friendly ones and tada, an all star Paleo recipe was created.  The reason why I call this recipe "Almost" is because there's one ingredient that's not 100% Paleo, and that's oats.  Sorry, I cannot live without some kind of grain in my diet.  It's not going to happen.  These bars are really moist, filling, and they have some energy boosting ingredients to make them the perfect way to start the morning.   

Almost Paleo Energy Breakfast Brownies (makes 8 servings)

-3/4 cup quick oats

-3/4 cup almond or coconut flour

-1/2 cup protein powder

-1/2 tsp baking powder

-pinch of salt

-1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

-2 TBS chia seeds

-1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

-2 medium- sized ripe bananas, smashed

-3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

-1/4 cup stevia 

-3/4 cup almond milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a 8X8 baking dish with parchment paper with extra hanging off edge for easy removal later.

2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the oats, flour, protein powder, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder, and chia seeds.  Make a well in the center and add the melted coconut oil, mashed banana, applesauce, almond milk, and steviates .  Stir everything together so it is just combined, do not overmix.  Pour batter into the baking dish. 

3. Bake for 17 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.  Allow for brownies to cool.  Lift the parchment paper out of the dish and cut into squares.  Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge. 

I ate half of the pan the day I made them, that's why you only a lot of empty space in the pan.  *It's probably not healthy to eat a half of pan of these in one sitting, but I couldn't help myself.  I'll workout extra hard tomorrow.