Hi! Hi! Hi! Is anybody still lurking around this abandoned blog? I wish I had posted at least once a week, that was my plan initially, but we all know that executing a plan is not as easy as we think it is. So here I am nearly after 2 months of my last post. We recently bought our first home and it has taken me so much time to settle down and I went on a baking spree last week after 4 months. So you can expect a couple of interesting egg free baking recipes in the days to come.
It all started with this "Nearly No Fat Fudge Brownie" recipe I found in the yogurt container. A baking recipe couldn't possibly be any simpler. I had all the ingredients at home and it was already egg free; so I was good to go. This is also a one bowl recipe if you have a large microwave safe bowl. If you are a regular follower of this blog you would know that I try to bake healthy; include a lot of whole grains, reduce the quantity of fat, sugar. So our taste buds have accustomed pretty good. The brownies tasted very good. We did not miss the fat at all. It was chewy and fudgy. Maybe those with a sweeter tooth can increase the quantity of sugar to ¾th cup, but it was fine for us.
If you tried this Almost Fat Free Fudge Brownies recipe, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below!
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Recipe
Almost Fat Free Fudge Brownies Recipe
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- ¾ cup All Purpose Flour
- ½ cup Granulated Sugar
- ½ cup Cocoa Powder
- ½ teaspoon Baking Soda
- ½ cup Chopped Pecans (or any other nuts optional)
Wet Ingredients:
- ½ cup Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips
- 1 cup Plain Yogurt (I used fat free)
- ½ cup Water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F/180C for 15 minutes. Lightly grease an 8x8 inch square pan and line it with aluminum foil, with some extra foil hanging around the edges so that it is easy to lift the brownie. You wouldn't believe how much time saving and mess free is this simple step of lining with foil.
- In a large microwave bowl melt the chocolate chips. It took about 45 seconds for the chocolate to melt. Do not set the time all at once, melt it in increments of 15-20 seconds because the cooking time in microwave ovens differ from one to another. Use a whisk to stir the melted chocolate to see that its smooth. Let this stand for a minute or two.
- To the melted chocolate add the yogurt and sugar; mix until combined.
- Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and nuts (if using) and stir until just combined.
- To this mixture add water and stir carefully until the batter comes together. This batter looked more like a cake batter.
- The original recipe mentions to bake the brownies between 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Mine actually took 32 minutes. So start with the minimum amount of time mentioned in the recipe and increase the time in small increments if it doesn't bake.
- Remove the pan from the oven and leave it on a cooling rack for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes carefully lift the foil and let the brownies cool completely before you can cut it. If you don't use the aluminum foil the cooling time will be much longer. You would have to leave it overnight too. I was able to cut it beautifully within 2 hours.
My Notes
- If you have a sweet tooth I would suggest increasing the quantity of sugar to ¾th of a cup. I also felt a mild sourness from the yogurt (my husband and son did not notice it). So I think the increased quantity of sugar will mask that too.
- If you do not want to increase the quantity of sugar try testing/tasting the yogurt before hand. The original recipe had mentioned to use Balkan style yogurt, maybe that isn't as sour as the plain yogurt I used. I have tried the Stoneyfield organic yogurt and it is not sour at all (at least immediately after opening). Maybe you could try that in this recipe.
- Update: Forgot to write this point before. I was not sure if the melted chocolate mixture would curdle if I immediately added yogurt to it. So I waited for about 5 minutes after I melted the chocolate in the microwave oven before adding the yogurt. To be even more sure I first mixed the sugar to melted chocolate; mixed it well and then added the yogurt.
RadhaBalaji says
Dear Madhuram,
I tried this brownie and it turned out awesome.My kids and my husband loved it .I will try your carrot cake and fruit cake.Keep posting more.Great work.
Thanks.
vidya says
Hi,
My daughter(16 yrs) and I simply love your website.My daughter is very fond of baking.She tried this brownie receipe twice,it was simply superb.She only had one problem the brownie gets stuck to the aluminium foil.Any suggestions? We live in Bangalore and I am not sure if we get non-stick spray here.
Thanks,vidya
Madhuram says
You're welcome Vidya. You could try brushing some butter/oil on the foil instead or use parchment paper.
Neha says
Sorry I forgot to mention...I really want to try your Silken Tofu Brownie as it looks absolutely heavenly...but I wanted to know if I can reduce the amount the of butter that goes into it as its a lot of butter. Can I say add half butter and half oil and make it up to 1/2 cup for example? I would like to try to that.
Madhuram says
Oil is'nt any better than butter, unless you are using coconut/avocado oil. So if you want to make it healthy used 1/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce instead of the butter. Or try this fat free Vegan Brownie Cupcakes recipe.
Neha says
Hi! I love your recipes and website!
I tried this brownie recipe yesterday. I added 3/4 cup sugar instead of 1/2. After adding the dry ingredients I noticed that the batter was already quite runny and batter-like and so maybe I did not need to add any water. But since the recipe said so I added very little (3 tablespoons approximately which I probab;y should not have added). So it took around 45 minutes in the oven for the toothpick to come out clean. But the taste was more cake-like and dry than fudge-like. When mixing the dry ingredients is it wrong to over-mix? Will overmixing lead to a more cake-like texture? Please let me know they can turn out fudge-y.
Thanks
Madhuram says
Hi Neha, this batter is not very thick. If I remember right it was like pancake batter, with pourable consistency. Overmixing does make brownies a bit tough. But I don't think that's entirely the reason for dry brownies. It's also the baking time. I think 45 minutes is a lot of time. The original recipe had mentioned just 25 minutes but mine took about 32 minutes. Even considering that you added extra sugar, 36-38 minutes should have been fine. Also while baking brownies look for the brownies to pull away from the sides. If that happens you don't even have to do the toothpick test and wait for it to come clean.
Devi says
Tried this recipe last night, had no yogurt so I used 1tsp of plain eggless mayo and 1/3 cup of milk.It was YUMMYYY!!!Super chewy!
Love your recipes, amazing!
Madhuram says
Thanks for the feedback, Devi. Using egg less mayo is a nice trick.
nisha says
I am a bit hesitant in making this brownie as I think it will taste more like a chocolate cake as you are adding yogurt. Could you tell me what exactly is the difference in the recipe of an egg less chocolate cake and a brownie.
Madhuram says
Brownie recipes ususally don't have baking powder because it need not rise like cakes. So cakes are lighter than brownies or brownies are dense than cakes.
S. says
Hi! I tried this recipe using greek vanilla yogurt and Splenda. Did not work very well. The consistency reminded me of GummyBears and the overall taste was disappointing. I don't recommend this recipe for weight loss / calorie counting purposes, because I rather have a small bite of a really good brownie. But if you are baking it because you can't or won't eat eggs, dairy, etc. then you might as well try it.
Roxana says
OMG! What a coincidence - I opened an Astro yogurt container yesterday and found the same recipe which I thought I have to save because my daughter volunteered me to bake for her gr. 3 Valentine's party next week and there is a boy in her class who is allergic to eggs and nuts. My husband, though, acdidentally threw the foil cover on which the recipe was - DISASTER! And when I saw this today with pics, I felt I was saved. I am going to replace the nuts with roasted non-salted sunflower seeds (which I started doing 3 years ago when my daughter had her fist awful allergic reaction to tree nuts - pecans, walnuts, etc. They have the same taste after baking as walnuts, same consistency, same oil content, just smaller...) Thank you so much for posting it! Roxana
Madhuram says
You're welcome Roxana. That was a nice tip about adding raosted sunflower seeds instead of nuts. I will also give it a shot one of these days. FYI, the recipe is available in Astro's website too.
Anna says
Excellent, I did a few small substitutions, I used 1/2 all purpose flour and 1/2 whole wheat flour. I increased the baking soda to 1 teaspoon (I did this by accident - but it worked) and I decreased the sugar to 2 Tablespoons. I used only 6 oz of yogurt - Greek yogurt. I too am following Weight Watchers and left out the nuts so this now becomes 3 points for 1/9th of a brownie pan.
Madhuram says
Anna, thanks for rating the recipe.
bethany says
I used 2/3 cup light sour cream and 1/3 cup natural yogurt and it turned out well. I also had to keep the chocolate on the double boiler while I added the yogurt/sour cream because the chocolate immediately hardened when I added the cold yogurt. It is a fantastic recipe, and when I added up the Weight Watchers pro points for this recipe (excluding nuts) it came to 3 pp per slice - not bad! guilt free way to indulge the chocoholic!
Madhuram says
Sour cream is a good alternative. Thanks for trying the recipe and rating it as well Bethany.
Clif Bridegum says
This is a followup to my last message as I forgot to rate it. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
Thanks Again!
Madhuram says
Thanks Clif.
Clif Bridegum says
I made these brownies tonight for my wife. She loved them! She really loves brownies so for her to like them is really saying something. We both went back for seconds which kind of defeats the purpose of healthy brownies but I guess it is better than two regular brownies or other dessert alternatives.
Since this was the first time I followed the recipe exactly with the only change being Lucerne Light (fat free) Vanilla Yogurt instead of plain yogurt.
I plugged all of this into a recipe nutrition calculator and found that the whole batch has about 1,200 calories and 14 grams of fat compared to a regular box mix of brownies with 2200 calories and 30 grams of fat prepared. These brownies are definitely way better for you.
Next time I make these brownies I am going to swap the sugar with a no calorie sweetener which would eliminate about 400 calories.
I would also like to see if I can make them a bit less cake-y. I haven't figured out how to do this so if anyone has any suggestions feel free to share them.
Thanks again for the wonderful recipe. This really is a winner and our waist lines also appreciate it!
I see a lot of brownies in our future.
Madhuram says
You're welcome Clif. Thanks for writing about the nutrition info too. Could you take a moment and rate the recipe?
Jessica says
Mmmm, I made these and they turned out super tasty. I used 3/4 cups of cocoa powder, whole wheat flower instead of AP, and substituted the yogurt for a half cup of prunes I pureed in a half cup of soy milk. It added a nice amount of natural sweetness and extra fiber. I also mixed in a small handful of chocolate chips and toffee chips. It was much more of a cakey texture than brownie, but so good. Thanks for this fantastic recipe! I will absolutely make this again.
Madhuram says
I too add pureed prunes in chocolate flavored baked goods and it turns out great.
Maureen says
Hi Madhuram
Made these brownies last night...yum! I didn't have chocolate chips so substituted 3 squares of semi sweet baking chocolate. It's my first time making the recipe so I can't yet compare it to actually following the recipe, but they were delicious so I'll be making them again, especially since my husband is allergic to eggs. Thank you for sharing your eggless recipes,
Maureen
Madhuram says
Thanks for trying the recipe Maureen.
CrazyD says
I have made these brownies twice. I must say these are the best tasting brownies I have ever had.
I made following changes.
I used 60% Ecuador dark chocolate instead of semi sweet chips and walnuts instead of the pecans.
First time I used vanilla yogurt and increased the chocolate quantity to 2/3 cup. I increased the quantity of chocolate because I broke the pieces by hand and wasn't able to properly pack the measuring cup.
Second time I used Vanilla yogurt with chocolate flakes. This time I kept the quantity of chocolate to 1/2 cup.
I hardly eat chocolate (can not stand milk chocolate) but for some strange reason I have always liked dark chocolate brownies. Now thanks to your low fat, great tasting recipe I can enjoy them more often. 🙂
Madhuram says
Thank you very much for sharing your experience, CrazyD.
CrazyD says
Just wanted to add that I made the brownies again today. I used natural yoghurt which was a little tart to taste. I added 1 extra table spoon of sugar and brownies came out delicious as ever.
Madhuram says
That's great to know CrazyD.
Radha says
Hi Madhuram...
I tried this recipe today..it came out nicely.. but tastes more like a rather dense chocolate cake than a brownie.. the substitutions I made were using brown sugar and homemade yogurt as I was out of the store bought one.. You think this made the difference ? Also, the taste of the chocolate is rather overpowering..I used Nestle cocoa powder (it says for Baking purposes on the box) ..Was that also wrong?
Madhuram says
Radha, I googled "using brown sugar for brownies" and got some results. Most of them said that it tasted different from the usual brownies. Some say that it enhances the flavor of chocolate (maybe that's why you felt that the chocolate is overpowering and was more like a chocolate cake). The feedback is mixed; some like brown sugar in brownies and others don't. Could you rate the recipe?
Radha says
Thanks for your detailed reply Madhuram. Maybe next time I will try it with granulated sugar.
I would like to rate a 3 star for the recipe (based on how it turned out for me) But for some reason, it will not allow me to select anything less than a 5-star ! 🙂
Thanks again Madhuram !
Madhuram says
You're welcome Radha. I'll check out the rating. Thanks.
pumpkinpie says
Really fantastic! Thanks for the recipe.
Madhuram says
You're welcome.
jas says
oh and also instead of nuts can i put in choc chips or cut up choc pieces?