brownie bites

Let me tell you how hard it has been for me to get a good photo of my food.   At 8am I have fairly good light coming in from the kitchen window.  At 11am I have good light coming into the dining room.  And then that’s it.  It’s all overhead flourescent bulbs after that.  The problem is that I don’t usually have food that I want to take a picture of before noon.  I have carpool, kids to get to school, Pilates to teach and errands to run (I know, excuses, excuses).  It’s been a constant struggle and poor lighting has even stopped me from blogging certain recipes, since I didn’t like how the picture looked.  For example:

A few days ago I was reading through some wordpress blogs, and one caught my eye: the $15 Food Photography Lighting Set Up by taylortakesataste.com.  He talked about how difficult it can be getting good lighting for your food indoors.  His solution is to make a diffusion panel out of PVC pipe and parchment paper, buy a 500 watt work lamp and use a white foam board as a fill card.  Of course, as soon as I mentioned this to my husband, we were on our way to Lowe’s.

And low and behold………I’m getting great pictures!  The time of day doesn’t matter now, since I have my new and improved light source.

I love these pictures!!

And I actually love these brownie bites.  They are very addicting.  They get a little “fudgy” (read, when you touch your fingers to the tops of them, they leave tacky chocolate brownie all over them) the next day, which I don’t mind.  They would probably freeze great.  Only 1 PointsPlus per brownie!

Brownie Bites

• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 8 egg whites (I used 1 1/2 cups liquid egg whites)
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp. instant espresso powder
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (semi-sweet)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a mini-muffin tin with liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray.

In a mixing bowl, combine the applesauce,  vanilla, egg whites, and sugar until they are well combined.

Add the flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, and salt. Stir the mixture until it is just combined and no lumps remain. Fill each cup until it is just barely full. Sprinkle mini chocolate chips on top. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs, or dry.

Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and allow them to cool 5 minutes. Remove from pan to cooling rack.

Makes 48 brownie bites.

Using the Weight Watcher’s Recipe Builder, each brownie bite has 1 PointsPlus.  If you have two, it is 3 PointsPlus (because in dealing with PointsPlus, 1+1 does not always equal 2!)

Recipe from Devin Alexander, FoxNews.com