Peanut butter + brownies

So mine don't look anything like this. 

These are two of my favorite things. How could you go wrong with them? Today, I answered that: by using Splenda! And not enough of it.

I chose Martha's Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies. They looked delicious, and I have had such success with sugar substitutes and wheat flour. I made the following substitutions:


FOR THE BATTER

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, plus more for pan - substituted vegetable margarine
• 2 ounces good-quality unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped - substituted cocoa powder
• 4 ounces good-quality semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped - same
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour - substituted Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder - substituted creme of tarter and baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar - substituted Splenda
• 3 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

FOR THE FILLING

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted - substituted vegetable margarine
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar - substituted Splenda
• 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

So, these were NOT good. They were essentially flavorless - I blame the Splenda. I used slightly less because usually it's a bit sweeter, but I guess not in this case.

This has inspired me to retry, maybe with the real deal this time. They had so much promise!

Ahhhhh-gave

In my quest to at least limit, if not totally eliminate sugar and carbs from my diet, I finally found agave. For a while there, I dabbled with Splenda. Here and there I experimented with Equal. For a two day period when my office only stocked Sweet'n'Low, I went there. These liaisons were short, fleeting, and unsatisfactory.

And then, today, I found agave syrup, the perfect sugar substitute. Let me just say... it. is. fabulous! Agave nectar is commercially harvested from a variety of agave plants in Mexico. The particular agave syrup I found is from the blue agave plant, if anyone cares about specifics. It tastes like heaven. Except better.

For my first baking attempt with agave, I tried Martha's Oatmeal Cookies. I knew that I wouldn't get it perfectly right the first time, particularly because agave is a liquid sweetener, and is therefore not a perfect baking substitute for sugar. In addition, I was planning to bake vegan, which adds a whole additional element of difficulty. Both of these elements combine to produce flat, cake-y cookies that don't stay together as well as regular cookies.

I started with two cups of agave, subsituting for both the brown and granulated sugar. Because agave has such a unique, sweet flavor, I figured this would be appropriate. Instead of butter, I mixed in two sticks of vegetable margarine with the agave. In place of the eggs, I stirred in a cup of Sprite Zero.

For the dry ingredients, I mixed together three cups of rolled oats, one cups and two tablespoons whole wheat flower (instead of white flower), baking soda, baking soda + creme of tartar (to replace the baking powder) and 1/2 cup flax meal (to replace the wheat germ). I skipped the toffee bits/raisins all together because I am really not supposed to have either of these.

While, as expected, the resulting cookies were a bit flat and crumbly, they were absolutely delicious. I really love the agave alternative. It definitely doesn't taste as fake as Splenda; plus, while more expensive, it's all natural and not full of chemicals with unknown biological actions.



Recipe (from Martha Stewart, http://www.marthastewart.com/282206/oatmeal-cookies?&backto=true&backtourl=/photogallery/oatmeal-cookie-recipes#slide_4):

Ingredients

• 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 12 ounces good-quality chocolate, chopped into chunks, or 1 1/2 cups golden raisins, or 10 ounces toffee pieces

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the brown sugar, granulated sugar, and butter in an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Starting with the mixer on low speed and increasing until it is on medium, beat until the mixture is creamy and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs and the vanilla extract, then scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, and mix to combine.
   
2. Combine the rolled oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and wheat germ in a large bowl, and stir to combine. Add the dry mixture to the butter mixture, then mix on low speed just to combine, 10 to 15 seconds. Remove the bowl from mixer stand, and stir in your choice of chocolate chunks, golden raisins, or toffee pieces.
   
3. Line the baking pans with parchment paper. Use a large (2 1/2 ounce) or small (1 1/4 ounce) ice-cream scoop to form balls of dough. Place the balls of dough about 4 inches apart on baking pans. Bake until golden and just set, about 18 minutes for large cookies and 14 minutes for small cookies. Remove from oven; let cool on pan 4 to 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
   

Comfort cookies

With all this wintry mix gloom and doom still lurking, I was definitely in the mood for some comfort food today. And nothing says comfort food like peanut butter, chocolate, and lots of sugar.

Today, I baked. I should have perhaps prefaced this by explaining that I don't bake. When I bake, things happen. At Thanksgiving a few years back, I dropped an entire apple pie upside-down into the open, hot oven instead of placing it gracefully in. The pie tin actually crumpled while I was carrying it and the whole thing just collapsed into the waiting oven. My mom spent hours scraping off the pie, which had become baked on.

This brings me to my current project: flourless peanut chocolate cookies. The best part of this recipe is that it is probably as easy and straightforward as recipes get... one throws a minimal number of ingredients into a bowl, stirs, and bakes.

For me, nothing is that simple. The first problem is that my apartment lacks any kind of measuring cup or measuring spoon or measuring utensil of any kind except an ancient plastic measuring cup that has the actual measurement worn off that I assumed was a one-cup and used as such. This meant some guesstimation and some crossed fingers. The second issue was that I didn't have chocolate chips and had to resort to cutting up semi-sweet chocolate into manageable pieces.

Surprisingly, I didn't screw up too badly and my roommate and I enjoyed the resulting cookies

(as did my coworkers when I brought them to work). The result was perhaps a bit too peanut-y and peanut-butter-y because there is no flour and the dough was essentially just peanut butter, sugar, an egg, and baking soda. Plus, the recipe calls for peanuts as well, so if you don't like peanuts, stay far away. I actually was a bit scared bringing them into the hospital for fear that anyone with a nut allergy within a 25 mile radius would drop dead of anaphylactic shock.

The one issue is that no matter what I do, and ho

w careful I am, I can't prevent the bottom of the cookies from burning. Even if the actual cookie isn't cooked, the bottom burns. Maybe it's the fact that I live in a Manhattan apartment with a bite-sized oven that is definitely not state-of-the-art. Or this is something I'll just have to work on... with Martha's help of course!

Here's what the result looked like: