About those brownies

I am about to let you know my favorite food secret, which I'm sure is not a secret at all, but I like to hoard things, and so I've been doing some hoarding of this particular fact: 

Nonfat plain Greek yogurt is made of magic. Specifically, it doesn't taste nonfat at all.

It just doesn't. It defies logic. It tastes rich and creamy (hate that word) and luscious and it's a nonfat miracle. And to add to its incredible greatness- perhaps it should be sainted, that wouldn't be a stretch for me - it also swaps all Even-Steven like for butter in baking.

WHAT? Nonfat yogurt can taste as good in a brownie or something baked as butter? LIAR YOU SAY!

No. It's true. Really now.

Those Greeks - they really know food. And beaches. And how to whitewash walls and write in a weird alphabet, but whatever. The important thing here, for my purposes now, is that nonfat Greek yogurt is really good however you want to have it. 

This time, I made brownies with the yogurt, instead of butter, and SWOONED my ass off.

Then I ate so many of these brownies that it totally negated the lower-fatness of them, but that's OK, this was a one time Love At First Sight kind of thing. Next time I will exercise restraint. Or maybe I just won't tell you when I eat the whole batch. We'll see.

Another fun surprise here was the fact that this recipe came from a weird unexpected place. Namely, Shape Magazine. And it wasn't just surprising because it was from a fitness magazine that usually only likes to remind its readers every.single.month that they need to drink 8 glasses of water a day and sleep for 8 hours a night and do everything in 8's including reps of bicep curls and washing of hands after potty. It was also surprising because I cancelled my subscription a while ago (I know about the water thing already, thanks) and it keeps showing up.

Whatever. At least there was a recipe in there.

Not surprisingly, my favorite feature of this mostly useless POS is the Recipe Makeover section where they take a fatty recipe (for example: brownies) and fix the recipe to make it more healthful by ripping all the good stuff out.

Now, usually this enrages me because I love butter and bacon and cheese and these are always the first things to go, but this time they swapped the butter with nonfat Greek yogurt and there wasn't any bacon or cheese to get rid of, so I decided to give them a go.

I mean, if a brownie can go from 17 grams of fat per to 5, I'm all about trying it out. If it tastes like crap, I can feel reaffirmed in my Butter Faith and if not, I can eat a brownie without the post-chewing remorse where I think about cutting myself. (Not really - don't email me about this)

Not Fatty Brownies
from Cocoa Brownies, Shape Magazine

Ingredients

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons espresso
1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

To Make

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with aluminum foil; spray foil lightly with cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, salt,and baking powder. Set aside.
3. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar at medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, or until combined. Add egg, egg whites, vanilla and coffee. Continue beating until incorporated.
4. Scrape down sides of the bowl and reduce mixer speed to low. Slowly add flour mixture to the bowl, followed by yogurt, and mix gently until combined. The batter will be thick.
5. Stir in chocolate
6. With a spatula, spread mixture evenly in pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center of pan comes out dry. Cool on a wire rack before removing from pan and slicing into 16 squares.

Recipe makes 16 2-inch by 2-inch servings.

Now, I know there is SOME butter in there, which I'm not 100% sure is necessary, so I'm considering going back for a remake. In this remake I will be replacing the butter with NFGY 1:1 and swapping out regular sugar for Splenda. 

I realize this may get gross and I'm willing to accept the consequences because JUST IMAGINE if it didn't taste like ass. That'd really be something. And then we could all stop hating brownies because they taste beautiful but make our rears look like barn doors.