Brownies and Banting
Brownies have always been my weakness. One of the reasons as to why I am attracted to them has been the "cake-but-not-quite-a-cake" idea. Its a cake chocolate bar and if you're a chocoholic, its probably a staple in your diet. However, brownies, as I have learnt take skill to make, no matter how easy those "tasty" videos make them look!
That being said, when it comes to this department, I much rather prefer to use a premix- no mess, no fuss and more affordable in my opinion, as you usually only need to add wet ingredients, that you are most likely to already have in your pantry. i.e. eggs and oil. whereas, if you were making it from scratch you would need to have cocoa, flour, chocolate etc and that just complicates everything.(I know that there are those who love baking from scratch and believe only in baking from scratch and thats okay too, I'm a lover of convenience lol)
Okay, but since when do Brownies and Banting go hand in hand? In fact, since when do we use the words, healthy and brownie in the same sentence? Well, since I found Banting Boluevard's chocolate brownie premix, that is. I managed to source it at Food lovers market in Tokai for 40 bucks, which I thought was rather affordable, taking all the other healthy premixes, into account. Plus, the added bonus was that I only needed 3 more wet items being 125ml cream, 10ml vanilla essence and 3 eggs.
This has to have been one of the quickest baking experiences I've ever had! The actual mixing only took me about 5-7 min and the baking itself went quicker than an episode of Gossip Girl - it took me about 16 minutes.
I know you are all dying for the recipe, so without much further a due:
Banting Chocolate Brownies
serves approx. 16
You will need:
1 Banting Boulevard Chocolate Brownie Premix
250ml cream
10ml vanilla essence
3 large eggs
2 dark chocolate bars (I used Lindt Lindor Dark chocolate 100g)
Strawberries (or any fruit of your liking)
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grease a brownie baking pan (or in my case a cake pan 😂 cause you don’t have a square one)
2. Whisk your eggs, vanilla essence and half of the cream together. Add premix and mix.
3. Pour into pan and bake for 12-16minutes or until you put the knife in the mix and it comes out clean.
4. Take out and cool.
5. Melt the Lindt chocolate in the microwave for about 2 minutes on high and mix with the rest of the cream.
6. Apply to the cooled brownie slab and put into fridge until chocolate mixture is hard.
7. Cut into desired shape and decorate with fruit of choice.
8. Serve and enjoy
Cost Breakdown
Brownie Premix - R39.99
3 large eggs - R7.47 ( tray of 6 = R14.95)
10 ml vanilla essence - R1.99 (100ml of vanilla essence = R10.99)
250ml of fresh cream - R16.99 (FairCape brand, really affordable and really fresh)
Total for needed ingredients : R66.44
My optional ingredients included the strawberries which was R25 for 2 punnets at Food Lovers and the Lindt Lindor Dark Chocolate Slabs which was R40 each. Meaning my total was about R158.50.
However, this amount could be greatly reduced by using cheaper dark chocolate, like Cadbury's Bournville.
10/10 I would recommend, because not only will it NOT break the bank but it will satisfy those chocolate cravings without you feeling guilty about it! Definitely one for the books, I'm already planning my next batch - most preferably using a square baking tray this time!
e20a74a34930c45f7725d87e92977725517ff2e7342e0c9e05
