Let's Start Again

My apologies for the blog silence for the past few weeks. You may be wondering... Did she forget about the blog? Did she give up? Did she lose her desire to write? No, no, and no. It was just a major life/family change that interrupted more than just my blogging. Thank you for your patience.

One thing you'll learn is that I love graphic design as much as photography, when I have the right tools. I become a bit obsessive about making things look "perfect". I am really lightening up on myself, but perfectionism seems to be hanging around and that isn't all bad. What it does do is force me to delay my next installment of chia information. You see, I'm crating a visual showing some of the benefits of eating chia. It isn't something that can be thrown together in a few minutes, but I hope you'll like it when I'm done.

In the meantime, let's talk chocolate! When it comes to chocolate, I'm on the dark side... the darker the better! However, as a diabetic, I need to watch my daily carb intake. Inventing recipes is one way to tailor "bad" foods into something somewhat healthier, but still tasty.

My well-loved and well-used book. When I ran the printshop at Oregon School for the Deaf,
I was able to add a comb binding to hold it together. 

Today I had a hankering for brownies. I love them dark, moist, and chewy, especially those little brownie bites baked in the small muffin tins. I pulled out the Better Homes and Gardens Cookies and Candies cookbook I've had since junior high (late 1960s - I baked so many Chocolate Chippers that I had the recipe memorized and could recite it when others asked for the recipe; friends and teachers loved when I practiced). Back to the brownies. I decided to make the Fudge Brownies and wondered how I could modify them.

My altered brownie bites. Quite yummy.

I'm going to post some comparisons first, then explain what I did to modify the brownie bites.

The altered recipe has the best numbers, with the original recipe doing nearly as well. My first conclusion is what I've always believed: home made is best. It is great to control what goes into what we eat. Now for my changes...

The recipe called for 1/2 cup of margarine. I use butter, but opted to just use 3 of the 8 tablespoons. I added a bit more fat though using 2 tablespoons of coconut oil. This doesn't save on total fat, but this reduces cholesterol in the batter. It gave a light coconut flavor and made the cake-like texture more tolerable for me because it reminded me of a Mounds bar. The recipe called for 1 cup of sugar. Yikes! I did use 1/2 cup of sugar, but supplemented with 2 tablespoons of Stevia powder. I was satisfied with the sweetness. Overall, they are good. I wish they were more fudgey. I haven't done research to see which ingredients will make a brownie more dense/moist, but I fear it may be that fat I cut out. I'll have to keep experimenting.