Beats & Baking

Like the post title? Yep, that creative little number is a product of my intelligent boyfriend’s mind- how did he come up with such ingenious words? Well we have been baking brownies whilst listening to some beats. Yep he is switched on 😉

Before I get into WHAT we were baking I’ll fill you in on my Sunday so far. I’ve been grocery shopping and actually have done very little all day. I had quite a late savoury breakfast (the usual) then a salad for lunch. Included was a bit of leftover taco mince, tofu, lettuce leaves, carrot slices, cucumber and a sprinkle of cheese with a dollop of extra light sour cream on top. Then we got baking. Today’s baking project: Chocolate Toblerone Brownies! With a healthy twist of course.

Pre-baking.

Post-baking.

The final product! Close up of course 😉

These brownies are decadent and very chocolatey, filled with toblerone pieces and use no butter or margarine. They are also low in fat, low kilojoule and low sodium! So you can have you cake brownies and eat them too 😉 These brownies are slightly different from our Triple Chocolate Brownies. They aren’t as fudgey and have a more cake like consistency to them. They are also richer. Whilst I and the bf prefer the triple chocolate brownies in all their fudgey-ness we definitely still enjoyed these brownies!

Chocolate Toblerone Brownies

Taken and adapted from Healthy Food Guide.

Ingredients

• 3 eggs, separated.
• 3/4 cup of caster sugar
• 200g tub of low fat natural yogurt
• 1 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 1 1/4 cup of self-raising flour
• 3/4 cup of cocoa powder
• 50g Toblerone chocolate bar, cut into small pieces.

Method

1. Preheat a fan forced oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease and line a 30cm x 20cm tin with baking paper.
2. Mix yogurt and vanilla essence together in a small bowl till blended together.
3. Then combine egg yolks, sugar, yogurt (with essence already added) and oil in a large bowl. Sift in flour and cocoa.
4. In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer to whisk egg whites until soft peaks form.
5. Fold the egg white mixture into the cocoa mixture till all combined.
6. Spread mixture into tin.
7. Sprinkle Toblerone pieces over the top.
8. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
9. Cool in plan for 5 minutes or so before removing and slicing into 24 pieces.

If anyone is interested in the nutritional information you can find the stats below for the original recipe. However, my version has omitted the frozen raspberries, used 3/4 cup of sugar instead of 1 and used natural low fat yogurt + vanilla essence instead of low fat vanilla yogurt.

Energy: 440kJ

Calories: 105cal

Protein: 3g

Fat: 3g

– saturated: 1g

Carbohydrates: 15g

– sugars: 12g

Dietary Fibre: 1g

Sodium: 60mg

Calcium: 30mg

Iron: 0.5mg

Since baking those babies, the bf and I have also been to see the new Batman. I really enjoyed the ending, we both did- but omg it was way too long. I felt the middle really dragged and there was a lot of stuff I could have done without seeing. We then came home and cooked a new tasty turkey stirfry- so good! Definitely one to add to the rotation. Since I am still a bit worse for wear I am off to bed early and ready for a good night’s sleep!

What are your ‘ideal’ brownies? Cakey, fudgey, dense, light, iced? I love brownies full of choc chips and nuts with a fudgey centre mmm. Oh and I despise brownies that have icing- that is a cake okay and so NOT a brownie!

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Mixing it up with pancakes

Does anyone else feel like this weekend has just flown by? It’s already Sunday morning! I’m not sure what’s on the cards for us because I am feeling a tad rundown. But usually as the day goes on colds improve so we may still go ahead with seeing the new Batman and might even pop into the Mt Gravatt Show. We’ve also got groceries to do.

Okay so let me fill you in on date night last night. We ended up having a late dinner around 8:30pm. We decided to keep it cheap and headed to our fav burger joint for dinner, Grill’d. I love this joint because of the wholesome and healthy values it instills and the bf loves it because ‘the meat tastes awesome’, which I whole-heartedly agree with. You have two choices of bun when you order- panini or traditional wholemeal blend. I always opt for the traditional wholemeal blend and the bf goes for the panini. We get the same burger but different bun and he adds cheese. We probably should venture out and try something new but we are afraid that it just won’t measure up to our usual haha! Maybe one time we will get one usual and one new menu item and split it?

Their site is also one of the few Australian food restaurants/cafes/joints that has its’ nutritional information available online (yes I figured this out during my obsessive days). It also dedicates pages to promoting it’s philosophy of fresh, healthy burgers- including where they source their produce and meat etc. And you’ll be pleased to know that I did manage to snap a picture before I ate it.

Simply Grill’d burger.

Typically, post-Grill’d we opt for Marble Slab as date night dessert because it’s right next door and we love it. But, because I had a cold and ice cream probably wouldn’t help with the mucous, TMI?, and realistically it was too freezing for ice cream (blasphemy). So we went to Pancake Manor. So this is where I am going to disappoint you- I forgot to take a photo! Sometimes it’s hard to remember to take these piccies when you’re enjoying the moment so to speak. But I will TELL you what I got I got a short stack: 2 buttermilk pancakes with a scoop of ice cream and a bit of cream and their syrup, plus I asked for a thing of butterscotch on the side. The bf got the devonshire pancakes which were 4 smaller pancakes (pikelets basically) with jam and cream. Both were delicious and I must admit it filled me up in a way ice-cream doesn’t haha. Filling, satisfying and delicious 😉

Speaking of, I am testing a new recipe this afternoon- think Healthified Triple Chocolate brownies but different… intrigued? Well you’ll have to tune in later today 😉 I am also really excited to do a new protein breakfast slice sometime in the near future.

So leaving you with the thought of brownies, protein slices and all things delicious I will finish with a positive message for the day.

What did your Saturday night look like? Do you have a favourite food joint that you frequently eat at?

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