Raspberry Sauce Brownie Ala Mode

It’s raspberry heaven around here. Our ever bearing raspberries have stepped up to the plate, so to speak. They have been enjoying the fantastically wonderful fall weather almost as much as we have.  Our warm days here in Wisconsin are quickly coming to a close but until the first frost there will be more raspberries to pick!

We have been appreciating raspberry banana fruit smoothies with a taste of aronia berries and cocoa as our afternoon pick me up. We purchased the aronia berries at the Madison Farmers’ Market to give them a try.

Here’s a quick recipe for our smoothie:

1 cup water

1 banana

1 ½ cups raspberries

½ cup aronia berries, aka chokeberries (or any kind of berry)

1 T. cocoa unsweetened powder, opt.

Mix all together in a blender and serve.

I’ve also been freezing the washed raspberries mixed with a drizzle of maple syrup for our wintertime sweet fix. And while we don’t have a lot of desserts here’s a walnut brownie recipe that we like. It can be served with a scoop of your favorite ice cream and maple syrup sweetened raspberries as a sauce or with just plain unadorned raspberries. Of course, the brownies are good right out of the pan.

Brownie Recipe:

1 ½ cups soft whole wheat pastry flour

1 ½ cups sugar

½ cup plus 2 Tbsp. cocoa

½ tsp. salt

1 cup olive oil

4 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped walnuts

Place all ingredients in mixer bowl. Beat at low to medium speed for 3 minutes. Place in greased 9 x 13 pan (I lined the pan with greased parchment paper). Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Do not over bake. The brownies should be moist and chewy.