Camera Woes

I spent last weekend with my mom and brother, and I accidentally left my camera in my mom's car's trunk! Sadly, it is now a few hundred miles away, and I won't get to see it for another 2 weeks. :( Sigh. I can't wait to get it back. I can't believe how much I enjoy taking pictures of my food. I sorely miss it.

photo credit: Creative Kitchen
Flourless Chocolate Brownie Cookies

Now these are just amazing. I am a HUGE fan of chocolate, and this hit the spot, for real! I tweaked the recipe from Creative Kitchen, and I think it still turned out amazing.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups granulated Splenda
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 3 large egg whites
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups dark chocolate chips

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Mix together Splenda, cocoa powder, and sea salt.
3. Add in egg whites until well-combined.
4. Add vanilla extract and mix.
5. Fold in chocolate chips.
6. Spoon small mounds onto a greased baking sheet. (I used my whoopie pie pan.) You may want to flatten them a little. I left mine as mounds, and they turned out mound-y.
7. Bake for 15 minutes.

Yield: 12 cookies
Cal/serving: 163
Carb/serving: 19 g

Strawberry Bundt Cake (NON-low carb)

_CSC0338, a photo by pgdeguzman on Flickr.

I had been planning on making this cake for a while, maybe a week or so. I'm seeing my mom and brother tomorrow, and I wanted to bring them a treat. Coincidentally, today happened to be my friend Jennifer's birthday, and I just found out--so this cake's for her, too!

This was extremely easy to prep. I suspect that if I switch to almond flour and Splenda, it would turn out comparable.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup salted butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 3 tsp baking powder
• ~1 cup of mashed up strawberries*

Steps:

1.  Cream butter and sugar together.
2. Add eggs and mix until smooth.
3. Mix in flour, baking powder, and vanilla extract. Mix very well. The batter will be quite thick.
4. Add strawberries. Mix as well as you like.
5. Pour batter into greased loaf pan (or bundt pan, as I did).
6. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean).

I haven't tried this yet. I might take a bite tomorrow when my family samples it, and I'll post an update. :)

* I used frozen strawberries. I put them in a small square bowl (sorry, I don't know what size! I'm sure any medium size bowl will do. Not quite as large as a cereal bowl. Maybe one down from that size.) and microwaved them for a minute or so. I drained the excess water. Then I mashed the up with a fork.

Peanut Butter Cookies (Almond Flour)

Before I even get into it, I just have to say that these were freaking terrific! It's a little carby because of the type of peanut butter I used, but I suspect that if you use a no-sugar-added peanut butter, it'll yield fewer carbs.

Yummy batter. I licked the fork this time, tee hee. So good.

I used my whoopie pie pan because it results in thicker cookies.

Beautiful.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 3/4 cup salted butter
• 1 cup granular Splenda
• 2 eggs
• 1 Tbsp vanilla
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 2.5 cups almond flour

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Cream butter and peanut butter together until smooth.
3. Add in Splenda and mix until fluffy.
4. Add eggs and mix well, one at a time.
5. Add vanilla extract. Mix.
6. Add baking powder and almond flour. Mix until well-combined.
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

A few notes:

• I used 2 tablespoonfuls of batter for each cookie. They're a good size, I think.
• I think next time I'll chill or freeze the batter. The cookies came out crumbly (but I'm so not complaining), but I think they'll be firmer if they're chilled beforehand.

Enjoy these, please! AHH, they're amazing.