Last evening we had a dinner guest who could use a little help getting to know her way around a kitchen. I’m pretty good behind the stove, so I’ve volunteered to show her around. Probably, one of the easiest thing there is to make is a brownie…and one of the most delicious! It’s a great start. One catch, these days I don’t know many who aren’t watching what they eat, and few things are as fattening as a brownie.
Then I pulled out my favorite diet best friend. My Lo-Cal Brownies. I’ve made nearly every diet version you could find on the Net…dry, not enough cocoa, too much sugar,…cakey, oily tasting…yuck! It took me about 10 attempts and a half a dozen kinds of flour to come up with these dense, chocolatey gobs of goodness. Sometimes I even drizzle a chocolate glaze over them. Mainly because I’m jealous of the full-fat ones I make for The Guys and they like frosting on theirs…butter and powdered sugar and cocoa…you know the one. Ugh – NOT on my diet! But this, oh yes my friends this IS on your diet.
BFF Brownies
You’ll need:
3/4 Cup Cake Flour – this makes the texture smooth. You can use AP flour, but it’ll be more grainy
1/3 Cup Dutch Process Cocoa (regular Hershey’s style)
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Espresso Powder (a must for chocolate lovers – find this in the instant coffee section and mash it between spoons for a finer powder…or do what I did by running the whole jar thru the Magic Bullet)
1 Egg (yes, Egg Beaters are less calories, but you’ll be disappointed – I was)
2 oz. (about 1/3 cup) Bittersweet Chocolate (60%) chips
2 Tbl Butter (yes, REAL buttah)
2 Tbl Reduced Fat Sour Cream (NOT fat-free)
1 Tbl Chocolate Syrup
2 tsp Vanilla
1 Cup Sugar (or a bit less – if using Whey-Low use 3/4 cup or less)
Step 1:
First preheat the oven to 325deg., grease an 8″ square pyrex baker (or other brownie pan) OK, I said this was easy… In a medium bowl, melt together the chocolate chips and butter in the microwave (maybe 30sec). Add in the other wet ingredients, along with the sugar – and mix.
Step 2:
Mix the dry ingredients.
Step 3:
Add the dry into the wet and fold together – don’t over mix.
Step 4:
That’s it – get into an 8″ pyrex glass baker and pop into the hot box. Bake for about 22min. and check for doneness, maybe another 3 min or so. The toothpick should come out a bit sticky.
All Done! These are NOT tall cake brownies – these are maybe an inch tall and dense. Let them sit to cool before cutting into 2″ squares – or you’ll have mashed hot pudding on your knife. Hmm, that doesn’t sound entirely bad, …but don’t do it. Besides, you’ll want to make some glaze.
The Glaze. You may not have this product in your pantry, but I do. Whey-Low makes a ‘powdered sugar’ variety and I really like it. It’s expensive, so I don’t make full blown icings out of it. But it’s 75% less calories, tastes like sugar and is a natural product. OK, I’m sold!
I just mixed up: 3 Cups Whey-Low Powdered Sugar, 1/2 Cocoa Powder, 2 Tbl Coffee, 2 Tbl Diet style Butter stuff, 1/2 tsp Vanilla, 3 Tbl Corn Starch, 1/4 Cup Almond Milk. Whisk together and – yummy!
This is so good – add in some vanilla fro-yo and it’s like that ‘Thunder From Down Under’ dessert – only this one won’t leave you with Thunder Thighs!! Enjoy!
- 3/4 Cup Cake Flour
- 1/3 Cup Dutch Process Cocoa
- 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/4 tsp Espresso Powder
- 1 Egg
- 2 oz. (about 1/3 cup) Bittersweet Chocolate (60%) chips
- 2 Tbl Butter
- 2 Tbl Reduced Fat Sour Cream (NOT fat-free)
- 1 Tbl Chocolate Syrup
- 2 tsp Vanilla
- 1 Cup Sugar (or a bit less - if using Whey-Low use 3/4 cup or less)
- Preheat oven to 325deg. Grease an 8" square pan
- Mix the dry to combine. Melt the chocolate chips and butter and mix. Add in the rest of the wet ingredients along with the sugar. Add the dry to the wet mix to combine. Don't over mix.
- Pour into pan and bake for 22 min. Check for doneness and cook maybe 3 min more. Until the tester comes out with sticky crumbs.
- You can make this even less calories with a sugar substitute, but not everybody's up for that. As it is this is less than 100 cal. each. Super moist and rich, you can only eat one anyway!
