Healthy Fudge Brownies? Try Vegetables for Dessert

Well it's Sunday. I apologize for getting this out so late in the day, it's been an unexpectedly busy one. But hey, I came through in the end, right? Yeah...

Not long ago, I set out to find how to make desserts out of vegetables, cabbage in particular, and already came up with a recipe for some moist cocoa-cabbage cakes. I've still been experimenting, and I've found one other version of a chocolate cabbage dessert recipe that I'll need to perfect and present. This one seems to have come out more dense and fudgy, and perhaps closer to a brownie than my original recipe(which was intended to be a brownie)

Remember me?

The main source of calories in my cake recipe was, without a huge surprise, the sweetener: maple syrup. In this recipe, I set out to use a lower-calorie sweetener, and since there's no erythritol, stevia, thaumatin, etc., in the house, I opted for a more subtle provider of sweetness: fruit! In this case, I used a plum, which I first pureed. I figured the fruit puree could also act as a pseudo-butter for the brownies. I wouldn't want to lower the intensity of the sweetness in order to cut calories only to reintroduce at least that many with fat!

Now, as always, I rice up some cabbage in the same food processor. Also in keeping with my "norms", I experiment with 1/4 head of cabbage, which gives me about 1 cup of "rice." Now is where I deviate from my last attempt by putting the cabbage rice in the microwave for 1 minute on high. This essentially steams the cabbage and will make it possible to wring out some of its liquid, which I then do by placing it all in a paper towel and just wringing it out.

Careful! It'll be hot! I'm trying to get rid of some(but not all) of the water in the cabbage because it will basically be introduced by the plum, and I don't want the batter to be too wet. If I'd wring out too much, though, the cabbage would become hard to mix and would reduce to very little volume. The next deviation came in the form of the dairy. I still added dairy, but this time, instead of using milk, I used low-fat greek yogurt, and less of it than I did of milk. I did this figuring the yogurt would provide a sort of density to the dessert, and I think it did this pretty well, actually.

Then I add the egg white - one - to bind the recipe. Then all that's left is to add flavor, which came in the form of three tablespoons of cocoa powder and a drop of vanilla. I also do one more little thing in the hopes of aiding the baking process: I refrigerate the batter for around an hour before baking. Honestly, I have no idea if this truly made a difference to the end result, but oh well. Also, this recipe lacks baking powder, unlike my earlier cake recipe.

An hour later(roughly), after a quick spritz of cooking spray, I pour the batter into two mini-loaf foil tin things and put in the oven at 375°, where they end up staying for around 45 minutes. I could have taken them out at 40 minutes, I think, but I got a little preoccupied and had to finish dealing with something else. Anyway... after getting the two sheets out of the tins, I cut them into smaller slices and freeze on a plate to help them hold.

Close up of a single tin pre-baking

Now did you ever think there would be "healthy fudge brownies" that really were healthy and fudgy?

Healthy Fudge-Brownie Recipe:

Serves: 8

Calories Per Serving: 20(with nonfat yogurt)

Ingredients:

• ~1/4 small-medium head green cabbage
• 3 tablespoons greek yogurt
• 1 plum
• 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 large egg white

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375° F. Wash plum and cut into eight pieces. Place in food processor with about a tablespoons of water and puree. Remove from food processor.
2. Slice the cabbage and pulse in food processor until a rice consistency is attained. Add yogurt one tablespoon at a time and pulse in between. Remove from food processor and add pureed plum.
3. Crack 1 egg and add the white to the batter; mix well.
4. Let batter sit in refrigerator for approximately one hour.
5. Spray a small loaf tin or cake pan with cooking oil and pour in mixture. Bake in oven for ~40-45 minutes.
6. After baking, remove fudge from pan and cut into approximately eight slices. Place on a plate or other container in the freezer for a few hours to overnight.
7. Remove from freezer and let thaw. Serve cold or warm in microwave and serve warm.

In the end, these cabbage treats were pretty tasty. They're certainly not as sweet as the last method I tried, which called for maple syrup, and the plum gives them a bit of a tang, assisted by the yogurt. These "brownies" are fudgier than the "cakes" were, and I think they needed to be let sit in the fridge and/or freezer for a little while before they were really able to hold together very well. Eaten chilled I could describe them as "mousse bars", and warmed they're a sort of fudgy brownie. Either way, they're delicious. And of course, they'd be a great dessert to make over Passover.