Happy Brownies

I thought that I am supposed to be happy... baking my happy brownies. I was happy baking these brownies but I am not sure now that I am as happy as I should be.

These brownies are originally made with lots of happy reasons...

First of all, these brownies are surprisingly low in fat, sugar and calories, and yet they are very moist and delicious! This makes me happy knowing that I'm feeding my family these guilt-free treats.

Second, I love baking and so I thought that I will be simply happy baking these cute little brownies.

Last and most importantly, I was supposed to bake these brownies for our 16th bake-along with my two baking buddies, Lena, from Frozen wings and Joyce from Kitchen Flavours. Due to family reasons, Joyce was unable to join us for this bake-along and I feel bad and feel that these brownies should not be as happy as they are intended to be. Nevertheless, I hope that everything will be fine for Joyce and sincerely wish that my happy brownies post can give everybody lots of "happiness" and lots of smiles on your face.

Hi! I'm plain-happy brownies made by Zoe, a happy baker.

...and these are my happy friends. From top left to right, plain-happy, just-happy, simply-happy and LOL-happy

More "happy" brownies... From top left to right, happy-in-love, no-happy-face, happy-stars and not-so-happy

Here's the Chocolate Fudge Brownies Cake recipe from the book, Enlightened Cakes by Camilla V Saulsbury.
(with my modification in blue)

2 ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or all purpose flour) (I used all purpose flour)
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (NOT Dutch process)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
2 large egg whites
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp espresso powder (I didn't add this)
1 tsp powdered sugar (I didn't use this)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9-inch springform pan with non stick baking spray with flour.

Stir the chocolate in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water until melted. Remove from heat and cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, brown sugar, cocoa, baking powder and slat. In a large bowl whisk the eggs, egg whites, applesauce, canola oil, vanilla, espresso powder, and melted chocolate until blended. Sift flour mixture over. Gently fold flour into batter (do not over-stir). Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake 33-35 min or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer cake to a cooling rack and cool completely. Release the pan sides from the cake and sift powdered sugar over the cake.

Make 12 servings

Nutrition per serve:
Calories 247
Fat 12.9g
Protein 4.2g
Cholesterol 35.3mg
Carbohydrate 32.3g

This is how I made this cake into my mini happy brownies:

Using half of the recipe, I baked a thinner cake with a 15 cm x 26 cm loaf tin at 160°C fan forced for 20 min . 

For the ingredients, I used 120g of apple puree to replace half amount of 3/4 cup of applesauce.

I've cut 12 pieces of brownies with 4.5 cm star-shaped and 3.5 cm round cookies cutter. Thus, each brownies worked out to be about 70 calories per brownie.

The faces of the brownies were drawn with melted white chocolate and the filled "mouth" area was filled with thin icing sugar (made with water) frosting.

To minimise food wastage, the bits and pieces of excess brownies were salvaged after cutting the brownies into shapes. I've made 9 truffles by mixing the excess brownies with 40g of light cream cheese and coated them with 100-120g of melted dark chocolate.

Happy Baking
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