I’ve had very limited energy this past month so most of my cooking as been more out of necessity than for fun. Tonight I was craving chocolate. The other day I bought a container of Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder and I was itching to try it in something. I adapted my Pomegranate Brownie recipe to fit the ingredients I had on hand and slowly pulled all the ingredients together (I can only be up for a few minutes at a time so I took lots of breaks between adding ingredients).

I baked them in my silicone brownie bites baking pan (has 24 one inch square compartments). They turned out beautiful though are fluffier than a traditional brownie so I’m calling it a cake rather than brownies. If I had added oil as the original recipe called for then I probably would have had the right texture. They aren’t traditionally sweet since I didn’t use agave or honey to boost the sweetness of the date sugar but I don’t particularly like super sweet desserts, especially when berries are involved.

I blended my blackberries and pushed them through a sieve to remove the seeds to create the juice/pulp I used in this recipe. I personally don’t like biting into blackberry seeds.

1 cup date sugar
1 cup blackberry juice/pulp (no seeds)
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
2 eggs
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350*F and oil a 9×9 baking dish. In a large bowl, combine date sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Stir until well combined. Add eggs and blackberry juice. Stir together until blended, using either a spoon or hand mixer on low. Pour into baking dish and bake for 18-20 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.