Maple Walnut Brownie

A bit of a change from your regular chocolate fudgy style brownies. I just made these following the original recipe but I will be redoing these at some point in the future with a few substitutions to make them both lower in calories, fat and sugar but with added fiber and nutrition as well ;)

I have not yet tasted these beyond a few crumbs that managed to separate themselves from the main brownie tray but those crumbs were delicious and I plan to save enough calories on my plate, to have one of these for dessert tonight. The rest will be frozen to be shipped off to the city with my hubby on Sunday. I am so lucky to have an outlet for all my more decadent creations.

The brownies, made exactly following the original recipe listed below are exactly 163 calories for a 1" square, that's using an 8x8" baking pan and making 16 brownies per pan. I also made a simple glaze for these which added about 60 calories per brownie but you really don't need it. These are good all on their own. All together including the glaze these are about 223 calories which isn't too bad for a dessert item. Omitting the glaze and making this by replacing 1/3 of the butter (2 Tbsp butter) with 2 Tbsp Chia Gel (google it) drops the calories to 150 per square with little to no discernible difference either in taste or texture of the final product.

Ingredients:

• 1.25 cups All Purpose Flour (150g)
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 6 Tbsp Butter (or 1/4 cup butter and 2 Tbsp Chia Gel)
• 3/4 cup Brown Sugar, lightly packed ** - see note
• 1/3 cup real maple syrup
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp maple extract
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. In a small bowl whisk the dry ingredients together and reserve
2. In a small saucepan add the butter and brown sugar and melt over low heat until butter is melted and sugar dissolved. Do not over heat, once the butter is melted you are good to continue.
3. Remove from heat and stir in the syrup; Allow mixture to cool slightly (to lukewarm) then break the eggs one at a time into the butter/sugar mixture mixing well after each addition.
4. Add maple extract to the butter sugar mixture and stir to combine.
5. Pout butter mixture into the dry ingredients; Add chopped walnuts and stir with a spatula to blend well. Do not over mix you do not want to beat air into the batter, just stir to combine then pour into prepared 8x8" baking pan. (I like to grease my pans then line the bottom with a bit of parchment to fit the pan which I also grease. This makes getting the brownies out of the pan when done a LOT easier.) 
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 350'F for 25-30 minutes until done. The top of the brownie should be lightly golden and the brownie should JUST be separating from the sides of the pan.
7. Cool on a rack for 30 minutes before removing from pan or attempting to cut.
8. I like to use a pizza cutter to cut my brownies into squares it seems to work a lot better than a knife but in any event brownies are a lot easier to cut when they are FULLY cool, so wait ;)

The original recipe calls for a maple  glaze poured onto the top of the brownie once cool. To make the glaze mix together n a small bowl; 1 cup icing sugar,  2 Tbsp maple syrup and 1 Tbsp Cream (and maybe a tsp or two more if needed). I had to add a tiny bit more (maybe 1/2 Tbsp) cream to make this nicely pourable but still thick enough that it sets up after it dries, use caution adding the extra cream, as it doesn't take much to overdo it. Drizzle glaze over brownies after they are fully cool either before or after slicing.

** I rarely substitute artificial sugar for real sugar, since I find the taste or texture often suffers and I don't think the calories saved is worth the effort or disappointment in the final product. I don't like to *settle* just for the sake of calories but if you want to, I would only replace up to half the sugar and use caution, many brown sugar substitutes are a LOT sweeter than the real deal and if added measure for measure will ruin your baking, and even if they say you can measure like real sugar I'd still reduce the volume if using artificial ... they lie for convenience. At some point in the future I may experiment and I will post here to pass on any results.

Just a few final notes now that I have had the pleasure of tasting this. The brownie was more cake like than fudgy and when cool quite dense ... IN A GOOD WAY. They were moist not too sweet and the maple flavour was noticeable yet subtle. I really really enjoyed this and I suspect my gang will as well when I send them back down to the city on Sunday. The 16 squares were quite generous in proportion and I'd even probably be satisfied with a slightly smaller square on days where there isn't as much room on MyPlate ... maybe cut this into 5 on one side and 4 on the other to give you 20 servings instead of 16 ... I enjoyed the glaze and though I initially thought it would be too much (overkill), it complimented and finished the brownie off quite nicely, in fact. ** 2 thumbs up**