No Pudge Fudge Brownie Mix - Very Easy, Very Worth It

More low fat baking from a box, folks. These fat free brownies are delicious, and each serving is 2 points (about half of what it normally would be!)

Plus, the packaging is cute... (it's pink, with a little piggie!)


So, all you do is mix nonfat vanilla yogurt in with the batter, which I think makes this mix better than other fat free mixes I've tried where you just add water. In fact, if I get other brands, I'll probably still use yogurt instead of water. I wasn't able to find this mix at a Publix in Atlanta when I was there, so I'm afraid I'll never see this cute pink box and little piggie again after I move... A case of this mix might be traveling South with me!

And... here's something I did that makes these really delicious - borderline decadent. I made a lowfat cream cheese frosting to go on top! All you have to do is take fat free cream cheese, add some splenda to taste (or a half splenda / sugar blend), and if needed, pour a little fat free milk (or even fat free liquid coffee creamer!) to make it a little smoother.

It is so freaking good. And, this makes a fat free brownie that much richer for just another point or two. If you're not up for the extra decadence, a little bit of cool whip would be tasty too:


Make these immediately to have on had for a lowfat snack! Or, if you're feeling like a low key night, make these with some girlfriends and you won't feel nearly as guilty as you might if you had broken down and gotten ice cream or baked cookies.

Enjoy!

Weekend Baking Fail: Tasty, but Not-So-Pretty Meringue Cookies

I love meringue cookies, and because they don't contain butter or flour like other cookies, they can be pretty reasonable snacks.

I used to buy Miss Meringue chocolate chip meringue cookies from the grocery store (www.missmeringue.com), and really liked them. Making them yourself, though is a lot cheaper, especially since they go fast! (You can eat about 4 for 2 weight watchers points a piece - right under 100 calories!).

So this weekend I prepared to make these Chocolate Hazlenut Meringue Kisses that I had seen in an old issue of Cooking Light. I knew there was an art to beating egg whites, and that making a meringue can be tricky, but I was ready.

It was not pretty site, though. Here's what the finished product was supposed to look like (picture from Cooking Light, December 2008) :


Cute, huh? Problem is.... mine did not look like this. And I've had a lot of difficulty after 3-4 attempts (sad, I know) to make stiff peaks with my meringues. But, before I show youa pic of how mine turned out, here is another picture of what meringue cookies should look like. This time, Sandra Lee's Strawberry Meringue Cookies. Picture courtesy of the Food Network:



By the way, this recipe was labeled "Easy" on the Food Network's web site. Apparently it's supposed to be "easy" to beat egg whites and make a meringue with a proper, stiff peak. Well, apparently I am challenged in this arena, because I did not find it easy... At all. And I don't consider myself a total rookie in the kitchen...

But clearly I was doing something wrong, because here is a picture of my cookies (image courtesy of my crappy camera and terrible photography skills):


Granted, they do look more like cookies (do I get points for that?). Granted, they still taste like a meringue cookie; just as healthy, and just as melt-in-your-mouth good as the more proper kind... But obviously, something is not right about these bad boys, and I followed the recipe to a T... so what went wrong?

The difference in color I can explain: the recipe called for toasted hazlenuts, chopped bittersweet chocolate, and cocoa powder to be combined in a food processor. The hazlenuts were still warm when I combined them, so it made the cocoa powder clump with the melted chocolate, rather than dispersing throughout the batter. Oh well, that I wasn't worried about.

The clear problem is that my egg whites never reached the optimal volume.

Here are some details from a few of my failed attemps:

• Round One: The first time I beat the egg whites, I think I actually got the right consistency. But then instead of gently folding in the chocolate nut mixture, I continued to use the mixer, so I think I over-beat the eggs.
• Rounds Two and Three: I was going try again, making sure to not over-beat the whites. Except I was using liquid egg whites I had bought from the grocery store, which were not foaming, or peaking whatsoever. After another try with them, I came to the conclusion that there was something very different about the liquid egg whites that was preventing them from fluffing.
• Round Four: I went back to regular egg whites, and went through the steps, and saw better results than through the liquid whites, but the peaks never reached a really stiff consistency, and obviously, made my meringue batter like the consistency of pancake batter.... which is why my meringues are flat like pancakes.
  

Well, after so many attempts, obviously I'm exhausted, and a little confused. One thing I think makes the difference is having the egg whites be room temperature. Sandra Lee's recipe above calls for the whites at room temp, and my mom agreed that to her knowledge, egg whites separate easier when cold, but beat better when a little warmer.

Round Five to come... I'm determined to get this right eventually. Int he meantime, does anyone have any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

Healthy Baking From a Box

I wanted to share a brand of muffin mix that I find particularly tasty, in case some of you are not feeling up for all the fuss of homemade.

For many dieters, Krusteaz brand of fat-free muffin mixes is no secret. I personally enjoy the cranberry orange muffin mix, but the blueberry are good too! And when all you have to do is add some water to the mix, stir, and pour into a pan - you could not find an easier way to bake.

This makes 11 muffins, which is kind of random, but I would go ahead and skip filling the last cup in the pan, since these guys are pretty small as is.

As small as they are though, each one is only 2 weight watchers points! For breakfast, I usually toast two in a toaster oven, and put a little bit of low calorie butter spray on them to add that salty butter taste that is so delicious on a warm muffin. They're surprisingly satisfying!



(Don't you know some guy is finding this post and is totally grossed out at the idea of fat-free muffins and low calorie butter spray, but I promise I've seen two marines eat these muffins - they're not too shabby!)

Image from the Krusteaz.com...

Seriously Healthy Banana Muffins

To my ladies at work: I apologize, I intended to bring in a loaf of this bread for everyone to enjoy at the office. But, I just liked it too much, and decided to pretty much keep it all for myself!

I had been craving pumpkin bread on a whim before Christmas and true to form, wanted to find a way to squeeze as many calories out of a recipe as possible. I started out by googling a low-fat version just to see what tricks they had for making the bread healthier. After remembering some good tricks like substituting applesauce for oil, and after some experimenting with sugar/splenda blends and light butter, I ended up with my own little recipe which turned out divine. So this time when I wanted to make some banana bread to take advantage of some ripe bananas I had, I decided to do the same - making these same tweaks to this recipe I found on RecipeZaar.

So enjoy this version below based on some of my suggestions and the great ideas I found in the comments to the recipe on Recipe Zaar. Also, this supposedly makes two loaves, but they were awfully skimpy when I did it, so I think I would take the advice found in the comments to make muffins instead (plus this makes it easier to control portions!)

Ingredients

• 4 very ripe bananas
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 1 cup blend of regular sugar and splenda, equal parts.
  
• 2 tablespoons light butter, softened
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons applesauce
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Some things to keep in mind...

• Make it healthier by making substitues for the flour... some people substitute half a cup of wheat flour, or half a cup of oats, or both - oats would be good in the muffin version!
  
• Not every "light butter" is the same... Land O Lakes light butter is 1/3 of the fat and calories of regular - and I can never taste a difference! I picked up a package of another brand of "light" butter that was only half the fat - Land O Lakes definitely won that contest!
• Always add salt... I was surprised when this recipe didn't call for salt at first, so I made sure to add about 1/4 of a teaspoon. salt really brings out the flavors in food, sweet or savory.
• This recipe is very sweet... Some of the comments mentioned cutting down the sugar blend to about 3/4 of a cup. This makes a lot of sense especially if you're using sweetened applesauce for the butter substitute. (I personally bought sweetened because I knew if I had to buy a whole jar, I would want to eat sweetened applesauce as a snack.) Not to mention that ripened bananas are deliciously sweet on their own!

Directions
There's really nothing stopping you from just dumping all the ingredients in a bowl, mixing it all together, and then pouring it in the greased pans to bake, but I really think following these directions will make the end product just a little better. So here you go:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Cream sugar with butter (this helps to get all the butter blended smoothly!)
3. Add egg, and beat lightly to get the mixture to fluff up a little.
4. Add the 4 bananas, already smashed up in a separate bowl (a pastry fork works really well for mashing and mixing the bananas if you don't feel like busting out the mixer)
5. Add the vanilla, and applesauce.
6. Then add all the remaining dry ingredients and mix well.
7. Pour mixture into pan sprayed with cooking spray so they don't stick! (Either 2 loaf pans, or a 12-cup muffin pan)
8. Bake for around 50 minutes, probably less for muffins, but keep an eye on them either way. You'll be able to tell it's all ready when the color is good and golden brown, or when a knife comes out clean from the center.
9. Remove muffins or loaves from pans to cool on a rack.
   

Because this has artificial sweetener in it, I can just tell you that it taste's so much better - like many things you bake - once it's cooled for a bit, so if you can resist, wait to taste for about 10-15 minutes!

When I made this recipe with the 2 Tbsp of butter, and full 1.5 cup of flour and 1 cup splenda / sugar blend, the whole batch had 30 weight watchers points - making 1/5 of each loaf about 3 points. I'm going to experiment soon with the muffins, using less butter and substituting 1/2 cup of oats for 1/2 cup of the flour - which I think can make these bad boys about 2 points per muffin!