Several days ago, I put up a post on low calorie desserts:

Are you Deserting Dessert???… (No dessert for me!) (publish0x.com)

I’d already tried the berry sorbet and discussed that in the post I linked above.

Today I made the Greek yogurt brownie recipe:

Greek Yogurt Brownies (Under 100 Calories!)- The Big Man's World ® (thebigmansworld.com)

I followed the recipe except for these substitutions:

For the melted chocolate, I used unsweetened Bakers brand dark chocolate and used just under a ½ cup (because I got tired of chopping...)

I used 2 individual serving size containers of Two Good vanilla Greek yogurt.

I used Stevia as my sweetener (the same amount as it called for the other sweetener).

I used whole wheat flour.

I made milk using non-fat dried milk and water.

I omitted the chocolate chips (I didn’t want more calories).

How I made it:

I preheated the oven to 350F and very messily lined an 8 x 8 glass baking dish with parchment paper (this is easier said than done).

The first step was to melt the chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave. I immediately realized is that chocolate is hard to chop up… even harder to chop up into equal pieces so that it melts evenly. After three cycles using my microwave’s melt chocolate setting, it was finally melted.

The recipe said to let cool for one or two minutes and then whisk in the sweetener and yogurt.

I was nervous because the glass bowl seemed way too hot to add something cold, even after a few minutes. I had visions of curdled Greek yogurt and ruined brownies, so I stuck it in the fridge for a minute or so and when the bowl still seemed way too hot, decided to transfer the melted chocolate to a metal mixing bowl.

Don’t do this….

Because I agonized instead of just going with the directions, the minute I dumped the Stevia and the cold Greek yogurt in with the melted chocolate, the chocolate started to harden a bit and stick to the bottom of the metal bowl. I think if I had whisked the Stevia and yogurt first in the metal bowl, and then added the chocolate, The chocolate would not have ended up stuck to the bowl. So, I had to do a little scraping of chocolate off the bottom of the bowl as I was whisking.

This is going to sound gross, but when I was done whisking, it looked like Oreo cookie flavored cottage cheese with tiny lumps, if you can imagine such a thing. It’s not smooth at all, which seems to be okay.

I then added the dry ingredients to the yogurt and chocolate mixture per the recipe and began to incorporate them with a spatula by hand.

I was treated to a giant cloud of cocoa powder… which ended up on my face… t-shirt…..the counter… and, of course, the floor. I’m so glad my baking god of a husband was at the gym (don’t judge me for not going with him… I went yesterday for the first time in five months and can barely move today) so he didn’t see the cocoa powder dust storm that overtook our kitchen.

Once the cocoa powder settled and I realized how gingerly I need to incorporate this mixture, it mixed better. Fully mixed, I noted the color was a lot lighter than boxed brownie mix. I carefully scraped it into the center of the 8 x 8 lined baking dish, trying not to dislodge the parchment paper that wouldn't stay flat, and worked to spread it out evenly. The mixture didn’t pour as easily as boxed brownie mix, either.  It was more of a scrape it out and spread it experience.

It was fluffy and thick in the pan I used. I think I could have used a 9 x 13 pan maybe?

I put it in the preheated oven and set the timer initially for 27 minutes to start. When the timer went off, I checked it with a toothpick and it was still wet, so I baked it for another two to three minutes.

The second time I pulled it out I stuck a table knife in it and it came out clean so I took it out and put the pan on a wire rack to cool.

I used a knife the second time to check it because… sigh…. the only toothpicks I could find were the cocktail ones with the fancy plastic decoration on one end, and after I took the toothpick out to check the brownies, I couldn’t corral the rest of the damn things to fit under the plastic lid for the box and spent a minute or so trying get the one or two annoying toothpicks to fit under the lid… and don’t ask me where my cake tester is… I have bought several over the years but apparently there is a cake tester thief loose in my house because I can never find one when I need it. My husband doesn’t use one. I probably have 25 of them at the bottom of a drawer somewhere….

Results are as follows:

They are moist, the texture is fabulous and they are not over-baked. I think I have a really great bake here (for you GBBS fans).

The flavor is chocolate-y BUT they are barely sweet at all. I used ½ cup of Stevia, so if you want sweeter and you are using Stevia, consider how sweet the yogurt is that you are using. Next time, I am going to add an additional ¼ cup of Stevia. I think I needed more Stevia because Two Good vanilla Greek yogurt isn’t that sweet, so that is probably a contributing factor to the sweetness.

I actually like that they are not overly sweet. I think these are more of an ‘eat with tea or coffee’ brownie rather than an ‘eat with a glass of milk’ brownie.

Now for the sobering news about these brownies. I decided to input the recipe into My Fitness Pal. I did this on my computer rather than using the phone app. This is one of the reasons I like My Fitness Pal. You can use both a phone and a computer to track your food and progress.

The app has this feature where you copy the URL of the recipe website into a website field, and the app finds the ingredients, puts them in a list, allows you to remove, add, or edit the list of ingredients. You have to provide how many servings the recipe makes, and then it calculates the calories per serving. It’s a great feature in this app.

Because I used an 8 x 8 pan, I logically decided the twelve servings the recipe said this made was ridiculously small, and that six servings seemed more reasonable. I think that is when I came to the conclusion that, yes, I should have used a 9 x 13 baking dish.

After I had changed the ingredient list to match what I actually used, and set the number of servings to six, the calorie count came out to 151 calories per serving.

How do you know how many calories you will consume when cutting a brownie square? Well… I angst about how to measure servings (still using the tablespoon for my half and half daily), so I came up with my brilliantly complicated solution!

To figure this out, I actually removed the cooled, UNCUT brownies (as a whole) from the pan, using the parchment paper to lift them out, and plunked them on my food scale. They weighed 587 grams. As a six serving batch, each serving is 97 grams (587 / 6). So, now all I have to do is cut a modest piece, weigh it in grams, and input (weight of my brownie / 97) as the number of servings in the app. The app will calculate the calories based on the serving size I input. Note that the recipe is already there as part of my food list, so I can just add it like any other food in the app and change the serving size.

If you want a dessert that is under 100 calories, you can make these, but be mindful of how thick they are using an 8 x 8 pan, and change your serving size to twelve, which makes each brownie about 76 calories, based on the ingredients I used. You could also use the 9 x 13 pan, which would make them thinner.

I think I would make these again.