Beans for dessert.

While preparing for a class I was to teach a week or two ago I was writing recipes and didn't really have any dessert recipes for beans.
I guess you need a little history here. I teach classes on food preparation for our church. The classes focus on foods that can be used in long term storage. We use our food storage for anything that might happen, hurricanes, long term power outages, periods of hardship etc. Each one of the classes I teach, I try to give them insight for whatever product we are working with and some good recipes that can be prepared from food storage products only. As far as recipes go, I try to always include a breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert recipe. But this proved to be a problem for me. I mean, who eats beans for dessert? Dinner didn't give you enough gas and you wanted to come back for more?

And then came the beans.

There are only two kinds of beans that come to mind when I think of dessert. First is the wonderful vanilla bean and second is the adzuki bean which is pretty big in asian desserts specifically Japanese dessert. Yumm, adzuki bean ice cream at the sushi bar......

A few notes about beans.

First, beans should be soaked before cooking. Why? Simply put, it reduces our bodies reaction to them (gas). It will not eliminate it entirely, but will certainly reduce it greatly.
Next thing is that beans can be cooked plain and added to other dishes, either whole, mashed or ground to a pulp, literally.
Also, beans can be used in baked goods to replace the fat 1:1 So if your baking recipe calls for 1/2 cup of butter, try substituting 1/2 cup of plain cooked beans instead.

Long story short.

After playing around with beans for a while I came up with two great desserts, pinto bean chocolate pudding, and White bean fudge brownies.

The test.

Allright, so now I can make this stuff. But who is going to eat it? Does it taste good? Yes. Well, at least that's what my two daughters tell me. One is 4 and one is almost 2. They happen to be some of the best food critics I know. They especially like to put the pudding on top of the brownie.
"And it is good!" says Ria.

Recipes to follow soon?