#3.1: Make 20 Recipes From Pinterest – Whole Wheat Pumpkin Brownies

I feel kind of bad for writing another recipe post, nonetheless another dessert post, right away. But, unlike the last one, this one is for my 101 in 1001 list. That makes it sound less lazy, right?

I was in need of a dessert to take to a get-together my mom's best friend was having. At first, I was frustrated – I'd completely splurged on pumpkin chocolate chip cookies a couple days ago, and I was counting on that for my cheat day. I knew I'd have a hard time staying away from all the food and desserts that would inevitably be there, so I decided I'd make something healthy. This way, there'd be something for me to satisfy my dessert cravings, and the chance of going overboard would be thrown out the window. You've heard that saying, I'm sure – if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So that's what I did. I planned.

After searching Pinterest for a number of hours (slight exaggeration), I found this: 65 Calorie Whole Wheat Pumpkin Brownies. The blog is run by a girl named Taralynn, and it's amazing. I highly recommend checking it out. Anyway, the brownies looked so good, and the comments were full of rave reviews, so I had to try them. Plus, this would give me the chance to use the leftover pumpkin I still had. Zingaaaaa.

Ingredients

º 3 medium eggs
º 1 tsp vanilla extract
º 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
º 1/3 cup hot water
º 1 heaping cup whole wheat flour
º 6 oz vanilla yogurt
º 1 cup pumpkin puree
º 3/4 cup Stevia in the Raw
º 1 tsp butterscotch chips
º 1 tsp chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Put the eggs, yogurt, pumpkin, and vanilla in a bowl and beat together. 

Now, I didn't have any vanilla yogurt, so I substituted half a cup of plain Greek yogurt. I also added an extra teaspoon of vanilla.

Mix in the Stevia with the pumpkin mixture aka bowl of vomit.

Mix the water and the cocoa powder. 

It should look somewhat like icing. If it's too thick, add more water. (CAUTION: DO NOT LICK THE SPOON UNLESS YOU WANT TO HACK UP YOUR OVARIES. IT'S VERY BITTER)

Mix with the pumpkin mixture. Now it's a darker shade of vomit. 

Add the flour and mix.

Spread out the batter in a greased baking dish.

Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top. I didn't have any butterscotch chips, so I just doubled the amount of chocolate chips. No complaints here! Taralynn also mentioned that topping the brownies with cherries, cranberries, walnuts, peanut butter, or M&Ms would be good. Bake the brownies 25 to 30 minutes. They're done when a toothpick comes out clean.

Once they're out of the oven, place them in the fridge to cool. This gives the brownies a fudgier consistency (2 points for my clean, organized fridge).

Cut them into 15 pieces, and eat!

You all must be dying to know how they turned out. Did I like them? Yes and no. They turned out great for brownies that were only supposed to be 65 calories, and I'll definitely eat one or two during the week if I'm craving something sweet. BUT, they didn't meet my expectations. Maybe it was because I didn't use vanilla yogurt, maybe I should have used more chocolate chips or cocoa powder. Who knows? Needless to say, I did not take them to the party. It turned out that we were the only people bringing dessert, and I didn't want to make people gag. What did I end up doing, then? I made chocolate chips cookies and took those instead, but I did bring a brownie for myself to resist any temptation. It was a good night.

Nutrition per Brownie:
65 calories, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein