Happy World Chocolate Day!
I'm sure most of you have been celebrating by scoffing a range of chocolatey delights. As a recovering sugar addict I'm a bit more reserved in my celebrations.
Sugarfree
For the last month I've stopped eating sugar. By that I mean I stopped eating cakes, biscuits, sweets, ice cream and chocolate! I'm not going crazy about it and cutting out things like bread because it contains some sugar, but I do buy no-added-sugar versions of foods like peanut butter when I can. I'm trying to lose the last little bit of baby weight and wanted to see what would happen if I stopped eating all the sugary foods I like for a few months. Plus I like challenging myself now and then!
Kick Cravings to the Curb
Apart from the time when I ate a family sized bag of toffee pop for breakfast one morning (I blame my hormones!), I've stayed on track. But I still got to thinking, there must be other ways to get a sweet fix without sugar. I tried and failed at a sugar free recipe for flapjacks. The were seriously disgusting! Then I came across this beauty of a recipe for brownies. I used to make brownies regularly with my middle daughter. We perfected that recipe but it contained an insane amount of sugar. This recipe is from the book "Eating Well Made Easy' by Lorraine Pascale. I'm going to share the recipe with you because I've tried and tested it.
Ingredients:
Rapeseed oil, for greasing
75g (3oz) oats
200g (7oz) Medjool dates, pitted
125g (4½ oz) unsalted butter, melted
75g (3oz) unsweetened cocoa powder
5 tbsp unsweetened almond milk (I used 10 tbsp as I felt it was too dry)
2 free-range eggs
1 tsp baking powder
Seeds from 1 vanilla pod (I used 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract)
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180C (fan 160C), 350F, Gas Mark 4. Grease and line an 18cm (7in) square baking tin with baking parchment and set aside.
- Put the oats in a food processor and blitz until they become like a powder or fine flour. Add the dates, butter, cocoa powder, almond milk, eggs, baking powder and vanilla seeds/extract and process until the mixture is smooth and fudgy.
- Spoon the brownie mixture into the baking tin, smoothing the top evenly with the back of a spoon. Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes until firm on top but a little soft in the centre. That should mean that the centre of the brownies should still be the tiniest bit gooey.
- Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool a little. Then, cut into nine squares and serve.
Not so guilty pleasure
If you're trying to eat clean but still want to enjoy a sweet treat then try them. They're not exactly like the sugary kind that contain melted chocolate but they're pretty tasty. My three kids gave them the thumbs up and they know their sugary treats!
Let me know if you try them out and what you thought of them.