These days I’m not totally refined-sugar-free anymore. However, I have managed to find a way to eat refined sugars in very small quantities – mostly in a bite or two of gelato here and there, or some dark chocolate, or in a treat made by a friend – and I eat natural, unrefined sugars in small amounts – raw honey in my tea, mostly. I don’t eat sweets every day, either. This works for me, and who knows – maybe someday I’ll be able to totally and forever kick the sugar habit, both refined and unrefined!
Earlier this week, I talked about using coconut sugar, a gentle, traditional sweetener derived from the sap of the coconut palm flower. I used this sugar in a batch of brownies last weekend, and I thought it was a great alternative to refined white sugar. The sweetness was gentle and light, with no acrid element to it at all.
Not knowing what exact results I’d get by this switcheroo, I felt that brownies would be more forgiving in this experiment – the combination of chocolate, eggs, butter, and sweetener is a pretty safe gamble in resulting deliciousness.
Additionally, I used sprouted wheat flour in exchange for cake flour; this was the first time I’d used a sprouted grain flour and I liked it a lot. It added a nice texture to the brownie; in the past, I had used whole wheat pastry flour in place of the specified cake flour, and still enjoyed the more uneven texture compared to white flour.
Usually, one can substitute 7/8 cup all-purpose flour for each cup of cake flour, and add 2 tablespoons of cornstarch for every 7/8 cup all-purpose flour used. However, I didn’t want to use any cornstarch, so I just stuck with the flour on its own. I knew it would make for a heavier brownie, and I was ok with that.
The chocolate I used was, sad to say, quite inferior, but it was all I had at the time. I do not recommend using unsweetened Baker’s chocolate for anything, really. It imparted an anemic chocolate flavor – flat with no depth, no real richness. Next time, I will search for something of higher quality, preferably organic.
The eggs and butter were fabulous. The eggs are pastured “beyond-organic”, and come from my buying club. The butter was Organic Valley Pasture Butter. Plenty of CLA and Omega-3s there.
Vanilla, baking powder and salt are what’s left. Nothing remarkable with these ingredients.
It had been a long time since I’d made brownies. The recipe I use is from Cook’s Illustrated The Best Recipe, and I think it’s a very good basic brownie recipe. The recipe converted ok, but I think it will convert even better if I use even less flour next time. The brownies, which normally come out more fudgy than cakey, came out not quite cakey but certainly not fudgy.
My friend Charlene, who was there helping out, also remarked that using the full cup of sugar would also contribute to a more fudgy texture; I used only about 3/4 cup of sugar, because in tasting the batter it seemed sweet enough. I understand that coconut sugar is not as sweet as white sugar, so the brownie batter tasting sweet enough with 3/4 cup coconut sugar tells me how far along I’ve come in my tolerance of sweet things.
The brownies did improve the day after, I believe. They got a little softer and a little more intense in flavor, which I enjoyed very much.
My goal is to have a brownie recipe that is nourishing while still being a reasonably sweet treat. I want to do some more testing with this recipe before I share the details of the adjustments I’ve made, so I am not going to reprint the recipe just yet. Look for it in the near future, though!
