Healthier brownies with a secret ingredient

A good brownie is a wonderful thing, but they can so easily be as disappointing as a broken promise. A dry, crumbly texture or stinginess with the chocolate are the most common failings. A brownie needs to be rich, with a big 'hit' of chocolate, and soft - perhaps even verging on gooey - in the middle.

Healthiness is not usually high up my list of criteria for a brownie, but I decided to see if I could make a lower fat one. My initial plan was just to try to reduce the saturated fat by swapping butter for vegetable oil, but while I was researching the feasibility of this I came across this excellent recipe from BBC Good Food. The secret ingredient is mayonnaise instead of butter, which sounds bizarre but actually works. I tweaked the recipe a bit, adding extra chocolate to make sure it was rich enough, and cutting back the sugar slightly.

As they still contain lots of dark chocolate and a fair amount of sugar, I certainly can't claim these are a health food - but compared to a traditional brownie they're significantly lower in fat.

I took these into the office and they certainly didn't last long - and I had quite a few requests for the recipe. I don't think anyone realised they were lower-fat, never mind that they had mayonnaise in!

This is my adaptation of the original recipe. I've also doubled the quantities, as they keep for a few days. (The original recipe says it makes 12, but they would be 12 very small brownies in my opinion.)

Next time, I might add some chopped walnuts or pecans.

Ingredients

200g dark chocolate, at least 70% cocoa solids, chopped into small pieces
170g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
200g caster sugar (you can use granulated if that's what you have)
50g muscovado sugar
1 tsp instant coffee granules
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp milk plus 1 tbsp plain yoghurt, or if you don't have yoghurt, mix two teaspoons of lemon juice with 1 1/2 tbsp of milk and leave to settle)
2 eggs
200g mayonnaise (I used a 'light' variety, but I wouldn't go for 'extra light')

Method

Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4.

Melt the chocolate slowly in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Remove the bowl from the pan, then let the chocolate cool slightly.

Meanwhile, lightly oil and line a fairly large square or rectangular tin that is at least 5cm deep. Mine was 30cm by 20cm, but you could use two smaller tins.

Stir both the sugars into the slightly cooled chocolate with the coffee, vanilla and milk/yoghurt mixture. Stir in 2 tbsp warm water. Break and beat in the egg, then stir in the mayonnaise just until smooth and glossy.

Sift over the flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder, then gently fold in without overmixing. If you're adding nuts, add them at this stage. The mixture will now be much thicker and drier (add a tiny bit more milk if it's so dry that you can't mix in all the flour). Pour the mixture into the tin, and spread it into the corners.

Bake for around 30 minutes. The most difficult part is getting the cooking time right, as brownies always look soft and undercooked when they first come out of the oven. I found they took a few minutes longer than I expected. When they're cooked the top will probably have cracked a bit and it will look evenly cooked right across the top. A skewer stuck into it might come out with a crumb or two of mixture but should be mostly clean, not covered in batter.

Allow to cook in the tin, then turn out and cut into squares.