Thursday, November 5, 2009

Well, we tried...

These past few months I've had a great time trying out new baking recipes. From new sweet bread and cookies to pies and brownies, we've had something new in our kitchen almost every week. As delicious as these recipes have been, they haven't been helping our wasitlines, and it's something we need to be more conscious of. So yesterday I got down a book from my cabinet that I've had for a while but never really went through or tried out. Secrets of Fat-Free Baking.

I have a weakness for chocolate and was looking through the book to find something quick and easy that I could make with ingredients I already had on hand. A recipe for Honey Oatmeal Brownies seemed to fit that bill so I set about mixing them up. The original recipe calls for honey and unbleached flour but as I didn't have either of these I used orange marmalade (there's a whole chapter about substituting sweeteners) and whole wheat flour. I had the brownies in the pan in less than 5 minutes and the whole process cleaned up before Steve came down from getting the twins to bed.

On the whole we weren't impressed though. I have a feeling that chocolate and orange, though a popular combination of flavors, is something of an aquired taste. The texture of the oatmeal didn't really help matters much. I could tell Steve really wanted to like them, he came back after his first bite for another taste, but shook his head and gave up on them. I wasn't quite so bothered. The orange flavor was quite strong, I have a feeling it would have tasted better with the honey or perhaps a raspberry preserve.

On the plus side though the kids gobbled them up, and I didn't feel bad about them eating brownies. Also, they only have 75 calories and 0.5 grams of fat per serving. That's impressive. Although, if you're turned off by the flavor and texture so you head back to your stash of halloween candy, it kind of defeats the purpose. I'm hopeful that other recipes will turn out better.

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