One Way Or Another...

Next up on my list of things to try was blondies. I do love brownies but find them a tad clawing. So thought the mixture of white chocolate and pecans may suit my palate a little more. I took the recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery book and was determined to follow the recipe to the letter. Unfortunately they didn't turn out perfectly.

150g of white chocolate was to be melted with 125g of butter over a pan of boiling water.

Then add 150g of caster sugar and stir briskly.

Add 200g of sifted flour and 2 eggs to the mixture, continuing to stir to make sure it doesn't turn into scrambled eggs. It will seperate a little (looks a little like oil on the mixture) but don't worry - it's fine.

Add 100g of pecans (the recipe called for 120g but I only had one bag!) and combine.

Line a tray that measures 33cm by 23cm by 5cm with grease proof paper and pour the mixture in.

Bake at 170 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

Sadly as you can see they didn't really turn out like the blondies in the recipe book....

I was worried they were going to be very dry because the top was very browned. I cut them into 12 peices and the inside is actually really lovely and moist.

Shall definitely try them again at a slightly lower temperature. Although the recipe calls for 170degrees, I know my oven runs a little high so dropped it to 155 and checked after 35 mins. However it still looks as though I need to tweak it a little next time to get the same texture on top that Hummingbird have got. But I'm not too worried - they tasted delicious!!

Weight Watchers ProPoints: 9 (however they were pretty big - you could reasonably cut them into 15 peices and then they'd be 7pp).

Healthy Fudgy Chocolate Brownies

The 'Secrets to Fat-Free Baking' book is split into sections about what to substitute for a 'fattening' ingredient. This particular brownie recipe features in the 'prune butter instead of real butter' section. Initially I'm thinking that prune butter sounds gross. Well, actually, my first thought was 'what's prune butter, is this another weird American thing I've never heard of?' (The book is American, my first hurdle was working out the cups in grams but I was worried the second would be strange ingredients...) It turns out the minor panic was for nothing - prune butter is just blended prunes with a touch of water. Sure it still sounded pretty gross, but at least I knew I could make it!!

A lot of the other ingredients for the brownies were fairly normal: egg whites, sugar, cocoa powder etc. So they weren't a problem. It was my first time cooking with oat bran so I was interested to see how they would pan out. Brought everything together and the mixture looked fab - really chocolatey and lovely. My concern though was that there was no raising agent whatsoever in the recipe. I know brownies are meant to be dense so I wasn't too worried....but maybe I should have been! The brownies came out the oven extremely pancake like - delicious but slim. If I were making it again I'd definitely include some self raising flour just to give them a little lift!

Weight Watchers ProPoints: 2
Calories: 76