Brown(ie) Nosing

Craving, craving, craving! For three weeks, I’ve been craving brownies. Still warm from the oven brownies. I’ve tried every substitute I could dig up from the kitchen. Thousands of calories later and I still want brownies. Please tell me why we do that? The thoughts are like this:
I want brownies

They’re bad for you

Warm from the oven

They have lots of calories

With nuts

You must learn self-control

I really love that low-fat brownie recipe

You’ll never lose weight eating this way

I know, I know

Try something else

Yeah, something healthier

That will get rid of the craving

Three weeks later, and you’ve eaten chocolate chips, cake, sugar-free chocolate, walnuts, icing, fondant, potato chips, peanut butter, celery and on and on and on.

How did that help? It didn’t. It hurt. That’s way more calories than one brownie would have been and you end up making and eating them anyway, so what’s the point?

I dunno. An exercise in self-control? Nope. I ate tons of stuff and still ate a brownie.

I say, go ahead and eat a brownie or two. Just make sure you can send the rest somewhere out of the house so you don’t eat all of them.

Low-Fat Brownies (from a cookbook that I can’t remember the name of):

(My notes are in parenthesis)

1 c. all purpose flour

1 c. powdered sugar

¼ c. + ½ T. unsweetened cocoa powder

¾ t. baking powder

1 ½ oz. semisweet chocolate, coarsely broken or chopped

3 T. tub margarine or butter

½ c. packed brown sugar

2 T. light corn syrup

1 T. water

2 t. vanilla

2 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8”X8” baking pan with foil, making sure the foil overlaps the dish by about 1 ½” at two ends. Coat the foil with nonstick spray. Set aside.

Sift the flour, powdered sugar, cocoa, and baking powder onto a sheet of wax paper or into a bowl.

(I do this before the flour sifting stuff. Actually, I get this going and keep an eye on it while doing the flour sifting stuff. You will need the medium size pan even though it doesn’t look like it at first.) Place the chocolate and margarine in a heavy medium saucepan. Stir over the lowest heat until the chocolate is just melted and smooth. Be careful not to scorch the chocolate. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the brown sugar, corn syrup, water, and vanilla until well blended. (This will take a few minutes to accomplish. Don’t get discouraged.)

Using a wooden spoon, beat the egg whites in to the chocolate mixture. (I temper the eggs first by adding a spoonful of the chocolate mixture to the eggs, stirring it, and then doing it again a few times. Cooked egg whites at this point will send you ‘round the bend so I strongly suggest tempering them before adding to the pot of chocolately goodness.) Gently stir in the flour mixture just until well blended and smooth. (Don’t overmix this at this point. Remember: it is when you add flour to baked goods that you must not mix too much or you may make the batter too tough and not get the result you want. After it’s mixed, I add about ½ c. chopped walnuts, but that’s not in the list of ingredients so carry on….) Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, spreading it evenly with a rubber spatula. (There doesn’t seem like there’s enough to spread, but keep spreading it.)

Bake on the middle oven rack for 24 to 28 minutes, or until the center of the top is almost firm when tapped. (Soft and a bit gooey is okay at this point. Right here is where too many of us go overboard and overbake and end up with cake-like/dense brownies instead of soft ones.) Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let stand for 15 minutes. Then, using the overhanging foil as handles, carefully lift the brownies from the pan and place the foil on a wire rack to cool.

Let stand until completely cooled. Peel off the foil. Cut, eat, (regret, feel guilty, do nothing about the guilt like go for a walk or not eat that evening snack, repeat, repeat, repeat.)

Yes, these are the only two pictures I have. I wanted brownies, a had not a thought about a blog post, gosh durn it!

At least I waited until the ice cream was gone. For a time, I wanted that brownie smothered in ice cream, fudge syrup, whipped cream, and topped with a few maraschino cherries. There’s some calorie savings there, anyway. Right? right? RIGHT?