As of March 13, John and I have been married five years. We did it!

To celebrate I’m sharing 20 random facts about us that you may or may not know. Here goes.

John hates the smell of brownies baking (hence this no bake recipe). He literally vacates the house when I’m baking anything reminiscent of them. I love sweets; he could care less. We both grew up in Kansas. We dated four months before getting engaged. We honeymooned in Breckenridge, Colorado, but didn’t ski once. (We ate our way through town and napped all day – it was perfect.) We were opposites growing up – he was into computers and I was into sports and my hair. We’ve lived in three states and moved 10 times in our five years of marriage! We both think Portland, Oregon, is the greatest city on Earth (where we currently reside and intend to stay forev-ah). Between the two of us, we’ve visited 14 countries since getting hitched. We don’t have kids but are expert succulent caretakers. I’m 2 years older than John. He’ll be 27 this year and I’ll be 29 (cougar alert). We’re lovers of good wine and coffee. I have one older sister, John is the oldest of six! Before Minimalist Baker I had many jobs, including web writer, barista, house cleaner, and waitress at approximately 100,000 restaurants. John went to law school and hated it. So I put him to work on Minimalist Baker (wink, wink). We desperately want to visit Iceland, Ireland, and pretty much every other country we haven’t been to yet. We have a Sunday tradition of eating pizza and watching Saturday Night Live. John is a voracious reader. I can hardly sit down long enough to write a grocery list. While I write the content and take the photographs for the blog, John does literally everything else. We make a good pair. I think he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

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Now that you’ve taken a virtual tour of our relationship, onto dessert! You deserve it.

These brownies are entirely raw (except for the frosting) and super fudgy and rich. They come together in about 20 minutes and require simple ingredients you likely have on hand right now – such as,

Walnuts

Almonds

Dates

Cacao (or cocoa) Powder + Nibs

Sea Salt

And the ganache? Oh man.

It’s butter-free and utilizes coconut oil for an extra creamy finish.

While your brownies are chilling, whip this up in about 15 minutes and you’re good to go!

Spread it on thick, friends. This isn’t the time to skimp.

These gems are everything you want in a brownie. They’re:

Rich

Dense

Super fudgy

Studded with walnuts (and cacao nibs) for crunch

Incredibly satisfying

Simple to make

& Highly shareable

One bite in and I was done for.

Hence the reason I shuffled downstairs and handed these off to our apartment manager. Brownies of any form are too tempting to have around the house.

Not to worry, though. I managed to consume three before giving them away. OK, maybe four…

John had none, obviously.

If you try this recipe, let us know! Leave a comment, or – our favorite – take a picture and tag it #minimalistbaker on Instagram so we can see. Cheers!