OK so it turns out I REALLY love baking. For the past few months, I've been feeding everyone around me and living vicariously through their bites. Does it taste good?! Do you like it?! I don't have issues with willpower and actually track the bites that I do sneak in, but sometimes I want to do a little more than eat the batter off the spoon, and my husband is getting dangerously close to filling out his weight class, so I've been searching for some recipes that don't break my macro bank and actually taste good.
I found a brownie cheesecake recipe on a health food website, and to be honest, it tasted good, but the texture was super weird and the fat macros were a little too high for me to have more than one or two pieces (but it tasted so good I wanted to eat the entire pan). I made some changes to the recipe to make it 19.5c/2.5f/4.7p per square, the texture better and it still tastes damn delicious. The game changer for making this recipe so low in fat was using greek style cream cheese. I found it amongst all the other cream cheeses in my grocery store, but if you can't find it, 1/3 less fat cream cheese will work, just adjust the macros accordingly. The recipe originally called for chocolate chips to be mixed in, and if you've got the extra calories then by all means, go for it! Leaving the chocolate chips out made this brownie have a bit more of a 'cake' texture, but was still delicious and moist (I hate that I just used the word moist seriously).
If you have more macros to spare I'll leave a few optional items for you to make these a bit more decadent.
Ingredients
2 large eggs - separate the white from one egg
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup Cocoa powder, unsweetened
1/4tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Baking soda
1/2 cup Honey
2 tsp Vanilla extract (separated)
2 tbsp Sugar
3/4 cup Wheat Flour
6 oz Greek cream cheese
Optional
1/2 cup Semi-sweet chocolate chips - This will give the recipe more of a brownie texture but will add an extra 5c/2.5f to each piece
6 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese - If you can't find the greek style cream cheese this will work as well
- Preheat the oven to 335°F and line a nonstick 9 x 9-inch baking pan with parchment paper.
- In a mixing bowl, add the cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together one whole egg and one yolk, (set the remaining white in another bowl). Add the honey, water, and 1tsp of vanilla.
- Fold the egg mixture into the dry bowl and mix well (If you are using chocolate chips add them here).
- Pour the brownie batter into the pan.
- Warm the cream cheese in the microwave until soft and creamy (about 30-60s), add in the remaining egg white, 1tsp of vanilla, and sugar. Mix well then pour on top of the brownie mixture, using a knife or toothpick to marbelize it.
- Bake for 25-30 min, or until a knife can come out clean.
The macros were based off 12 even pieces, but feel free to cut into bigger pieces if you're on bulk mode. THERE ARE NO RULES!
This recipe was based off a Skinny Taste recipe, with some changes to make it a bit more macro friendly - As a PSA, her cookbooks and website are great resources for fun recipes that taste good and are healthy