(Looks more like muffins to me!)
So I make these awesome apple muffins that my whole family loves (will have to post them here sometime) and when I saw the above picture, well, my first thought wasn't that kind, actually. They look like ugly, concave muffins to me. Nothing about that picture says brownies. But because of the afore mentioned muffins we love, I decided to give this a try as a brownie-type dessert, which is how the recipe goes anyway. So don't be surprised at how different my finished product looks compared to this one!
I also decided to try an experiment with a couple of healthy alternative ingredients I've been dying to try out. So, here's what I did: I divided the recipe in half, with half of the ingredients following the recipe to a T (minus the walnuts since no one here would have eaten them if I'd added them). The other half of the ingredients, I made a couple of changes. Instead of sugar, I used Xylitol, which doesn't spike blood sugar the way other sweeteners do (it sounds a lot more chemical than it is -- It's actually.. well let the web explain it. The simplest definition I found was from Wikipedia, but if you distrust that site as much as I do, feel free to Google other sources!!! :
Xylitol is used as a diabetic sweetener which is roughly as sweet as sucrose with 33% fewer calories. Unlike other natural or synthetic sweeteners, xylitol is actively beneficial for dental health by reducing caries to a third in regular use and tooth remineralization, and also has been shown to reduce the incidence of acute middle ear infection.Xylitol is naturally found in low concentrations in the fibers of many fruits and vegetables, and can be extracted from various berries, oats, and mushrooms, as well as fibrous material such as corn husks and sugar cane bagasse,[3][4] and birch.[5] However, industrial production starts from xylan (a hemicellulose) extracted from hardwoods[6] or corncobs, which is hydrolyzed into xylose and catalytically hydrogenated into xylitol.
The other change I made was in substituting coconut flour in place of All-Purpose flour (which I truly think is the devil). But, I'd never even opened my bag of coconut flour before. Garbanzo flour? Yep! Almond meal? Sure thing! But I assumed coconut would best be used in baking, which I do as little of as possible. And upon opening the bag, I think I might be right. It had a knock-you-over great smell that would be amazing in cookies, or as a batter for shrimp or fish or anything else you'd like to taste a bit coconuty.
So here's how my experiment turned out:
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| (Left:) Xylitol/coconut flour version. (Right): Recipe version. Notice the left one is thicker already. |
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| Apples coated. Not much of a difference here. (In all pics, reg recipe version is on the right, healthier version on left) |
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| In this picture, the left (healthier) was the winner. It was all crumbly goodness while the regular version (right) was kinda gooey looking to me. And not in a good way. |
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| But right about here, things turned! The regular version bubbled up beautifully and the healthier version (left) looked dry and burnt. |
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| Finished Xylitol/Coconut Flour version |
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| Finished regular version The regular version won in taste and appearance. HOWEVER, the healthier version had wonderful coconut taste that was worth trying again. I think maybe if I add applesauce to the sugar/egg/butter mix.. maybe a 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup... it would moisten the crumble more. The nutritional differences, for me, would definitely be worth another go, with a few tweaks.
Here's how the nutritional info broke down (includes the walnuts that I didn't add). Healthy version # in ( ).
Calories: 267 (250)
Carbs: 33 (15)
Fat: 14 (16)
Protein: 3 (4)
Sugar: 23 (7)
Fiber: 2 (6)
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