Sinless Dark Chocolate Brownies

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Jessi

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My friend and I decided to have a bake-off today.

It was another one of my tricks to de-stress after finals, except he completely bailed on me the last minute because of “work.”

So I was left to my little lonesome to bake. It was quite peaceful. I sorta made up these brownies on the spot, and weren’t sure how they would turn out, but they’re sinlessly decadent.

They were ooey

Gooey

And completely sinless.

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate mountain

 

 

Sinless Dark Chocolate Brownies:

 

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup honey/any type of sweetener

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup oil

1 packet of pudding mix

1 cup of milk of your choice

2 medium bananas, mashed

Salt

Vanilla Extract

(Optional) 1 tbsp Coffee

 

 

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Microwave the mashed bananas until they are caramelized. Then stir in milk, vanilla extract, oil, sweetener, and pudding mix until mixture is thick and creamy.  Fold in flour and cocoa(do not overmix flour, or else the brownies will become dense and bread-like)

Bake for 15 minutes or until the top is flaky.

For a fat-free version, you can substitute the oil with some fat-free yogurt, applesauce, or more bananas. I like to have some oil in my baked goods, because it’s the fat in the oil that makes the brownies extra delicious.

 

Funny story.

These brownies were originally just supposed to be regular, milk chocolate brownies, but I accidentally added too much cocoa and completely forgot to add in sugar so when the brownies came out, they were BIT-TER. Even to a dark chocolate-lover like myself, it was too much. I didn’t want to throw away the batter, so I made a simple syrup (equal amounts sugar dissolved in equal amount water), poked many holes on top of the brownies, and let the brownies soak up the syrup. Disaster avoided!!

 

I also tried out Laura Vitale’s cinnamon roll recipe (Laurainthekitchen.com) and they are heavenly!!!

Before entering the oven.

Last beauty shot before they were all gone.

ALL THAT ICING!!

And then afterward, my friends and I decided to go to this charming little restaurant in Covington Square, GA called Treasure Thai Cafe. I used to hate Thai food until I came here, and it saddened me to see that business didn’t seem to be going very well, but then maybe it was because we went on a Wednesday evening. Covington Square is such a cute place. Right across from Treasure Thai is this little cafe called Square Perk Cafe, which is kinda modelled off of Central Perk, in Friends.

Since this is a food blog. I’m definitely going to be showing some of the dishes we had. At least the dishes I remember the names of:

Althea's Sumai

Thai Bubble Tea (or was it Chai...? ahaha)

Duck Curry

 

So today has been COMPLETELY devoted to food! Because everyone’s packing for the summer, I even got some of people’s leftover chips, trail mix and ramen that they were going to throw away. I even found a mini fridge, and I would have seriously taken the fridge if the cable wasn’t broken….**sigh**

Poor university students. We really need to do everything we can to get by!

Posted in Desserts, Miscellaneous | Leave a comment

End of Semester Indulgences

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Jessi

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I, Jessica Zhang, pronounce myself a food fanatic. If I had the choice to decide between going to a rock concert with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and enjoying a plate of Butter Chicken prepared by one of the best chefs in the world…I will choose the latter–But then of course rock concerting with JGL can happen after :)

Last Saturday, as a sort of end-of-the-school-year treat, my friends and I went to Flip Boutique in ATL to enjoy some good old, Top Chef quality burgers and liquid nitrogen milkshakes.

I know. Not the most healthy and inexpensive way to start a blog on eating healthy on a budget. But man was it gooood.

Before we went, I did a little homework. Meaning. I looked up reviews on Flip Boutique, and the critics had mixed reviews. They ranged from “the burgers were too dry, and did not have enough pizazz,” to “there was too much going on on the plate.”But I was  a college student living off of college food for the past few years, so I wasn’t about to complain too much.

I had the best burger I’ve ever tasted there. BEST. BURGER. The burgers may seem a bit overpriced, but you’ve never seen an overpriced burger until you’ve been to New York, or anywhere in that vicinity, so I thought $10-12 wasn’t too bad.

Lamb burger (or shall say Lamburghini). It was the sports car of burgers. Moist lamb on arugula with a drizzle of melted goat cheese on top. Can you spell heaven?

Then my friend ordered this side, and I couldn’t stop stealing off of his plate.

 Vodka battered onion rings with beer mustard. The perfect destresser.

To top it all off. My Cap’n Crunch and PB Foam milkshake came still letting off evaporated liquid nitrogen.

Cap’n crunch and peanut butter is the new PB&J. The new peas and carrots. Spaghetti and meatballs. I knew I was consuming about 1,000 calories and 2,000 g bad fat, so I told myself I was going to only have a little bit…and ended up finishing the whole thing ON TOP of tasting everyone else’s milkshakes. There were seriously some pretty interesting choices on the menu.

The Burnt Marshmallow Nutella milkshake I thought was OK, but apparently a lot of people loved it because it was the most popular item ordered at our table.

It tasted a lot better than it looked.

I must say, I applaud my friend who decided to try their Foie Gras milkshake. That’s right. Foie Gras milkshake. Duck liver milkshake. I liked it a lot better than I thought I would. I liked it a lot better than she did in fact. It sort of tasted like a bacon cake, with more bacon than the recipe calls for. It had a salty and sweetness that actually complimented each other really well.

Flip Boutique was THE BEST way to end a semester. Especially a stressful as anything semester like this one. Now it’s summer time Nupur, Drea and I are going to finally have time to cook!

 

 

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