Brownies! I think brownies are treats that can put a smile on anyone’s face! I have never met a brownie that I didn’t like. That is why I was excited when I saw that the new Trim Healthy Mama cookbook had a couple of recipes for these chocolate treats I knew. I knew I would be trying them soon. So thus enters the “Double Peanut Fudge Swirl Brownies” on page 315 in the “Brownies and Cookies” section of the cookbook.
Now, first things first, these are not the prettiest brownies I have ever made, but hey there was not a picture in the book so I can’t judge them against the book. Yeah, Yeah the recipe says that you should drop the “swirl mixture” onto the brownies and run your knife through them and you should get a “beautiful swirl pattern”. Well it sounds easy enough right? Lol, you can plainly see that I have no such beautiful swirl, lol. Key words in my case I guess would be “should get”. So I can either beat myself up about these ugly swirled not so swirled brownies or I can just think maybe the reason they don’t have a picture for this recipe is that their batch looked as “not so pretty” as mine did on the day of their recipe shoot. Hey everyone has bad days, right? Lol, okay most likely that is not why there isn’t a picture but it makes me feel better thinking that.
Okay, truthfully I have no idea why mine didn’t not turn out so beautiful but I followed the recipe to the letter and dropped it in by scoops. However, when I tried to swirl it around the mixture was a bit to dry to swirl so I just did then best I could to get it mixed around into all areas of the top. Maybe it was from my brand of nature peanut butter being a dryer brand than same but who knows what happened? I wish I did.
Now that I have confessed (and you can plainly see, lol) that I ended up with ugly brownies lets move on to the taste of these brownies. Right out of the oven the brownie is just “okay”. This wasn’t shocking or a let down to me because honestly most low carb and THM treats taste better after then have sat in the fridge a bit. If you have tried very many recipes in your journey you most likely have discovered this to be true as well. I think the chilling or resting period gives the sweeteners time to meld with the other ingredients and chill out a bit. I believe the book might even mention something about these being better the next day which I found to be the case for sure. The problem for many, I know, is not having the patience or the “want to” to wait for them to sit and mellow out. Believe me, give them a chance to sit and you will like them much better. My husband always hates the waiting period, lol. I can recall several times he has suffered at the hands of hot desserts!
These brownies have a nice chocolate and peanut butter flavor just as the recipe promises and they would satisfy a craving for a chocolate treat if you suffer from them as I do. However, I would have to say that they are not one I would consider a favorite nor are they a recipe I would rave and rave about like I have with some of the other THM dishes I have reviewed. Now, don’t get me wrong they were pretty good and I believe you should totally give these a try. The one thing that held me back from upgrading my “pretty good” rating to a “these are fantastic” would be the texture. They were sadly a tad bit too dry to fit my normal preference on brownies. I think maybe adding a little sour cream or yogurt in the batter might help so I may give that a go the next time I will like taking a chance with these.
I tend to lean toward a more moister or even gooey brownie so at first I thought may be it was just me but my dear husband and son both said they they were dry even for them. I made this pan of brownies a few weeks back and had it scheduled for this week on the blog. Since then I have seen some ladies posting in the THM groups that agree with my thoughts of these being to dry. But then again someone else said they were not too dry for her at all. So, I will just leave it at that and say it may be a preference thing, but to me they needed a bit more moisture. Not a deal breaker but also not a trait that will have me running back for more real soon. I would eat these again any day rather than going off plan for an unhealthy one for sure though! If you have made these I would love to hear your opinion or how your batch turned out in the comments below! Be sure to follow the blog for more recipe reviews like this one and original recipes from around my table of three!
My Table of Three 
I made these brownies recently and I tweaked the recipe a bit. It says in the instructions to “pour the chocolate batter in the pan” but there was no way I could “pour” anything as the mixture was so thick. It was also so thick it would not swirl. I ended up just adding more water until I got a more ” batter” like consistency. It was probably a 1/2-3/4 c.
Mine were definitely more moist–I was expecting them to be more fudgy in that aspect and they were esp near the center of the pan where it seemed a bit undercooked–but very delicious.
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Thanks for that feed back Monica! I have been meaning to give this recipe another try but haven’t. I will use your tweaks when I make them again. Appreciate it!
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These look much better than mine! I wonder if swapping the peanut powder for actual peanut butter would make it better? The cocoa powder mix is just way to dry to begin with. I added about a 1/2 cup more water and they still were too dry. I wanted to make the ones on the left of the book, but those required baking chocolate which I didn’t have on hand. We’ll, like I said these look way bette than mine. If I didn’t use so much expensive sweetener for this recipe I would’ve just tossed the whole batch. I’ll try putting them in the fridge like you said.
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Yeah, I agree. To dry for me too. I know what you mean about not wanting to waste ingredients. That is the only bad thing about food when it doesn’t work out on this plan. I have heard many people enjoy these so I keep saying I am going to try them again and just haven’t.
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