Chocolate Pecan Brownies

At the end of last week, I made plans with a friend for her and her sister to come over yesterday. Whenever people come over, I think it is nice to have a sweet little snack - it's also good blog fodder - and this time was no different. The only problem, is that the friends that were to come over are very health conscious, work out heaps, and have beautiful bodies to prove it. I know that for them, eating a sweet treat is viewed very differently than from my eyes. As a result, I wanted something that would be delicious, yet not too awful for you. I turned to Cooking Light and found a delicious looking Fudge-Walnut Brownie.  

 

I will admit that I know very little about how many grams of fat, carbs, cholesterol, etc. I am meant to have in a day. By "very little" I mean nothing. Since I got the recipe from Cooking Light, I figured it can't be that bad, right!??! So, I got to baking.

 

First, mix up the dry ingredients and in a different bowl, melt the chocolate and milk.

 



 

Add the other wet ingredients to the chocolate and milk mixture and give it a good stir - I probably could have used a bigger bowl for this, but it ended up working just fine.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir it up.

At this point, it was looking delicious and I was getting so excited! I love a good brownie!!

Finally I stirred in some pecans, which were substituted for the walnuts, and some chocolate chunks too.

I put the whole mixture into a square cake pan that was lined with parchment paper. I hate trying to pry brownies out of the pan while still keeping them in tact. Then I sprinkled the top with the last of the pecans and baked it up!

I did have to bake them a tad bit longer than the recipe suggested, but it wasn't a crazy long time (maybe about 5 extra minutes??) and these ended up being perfect. No burnt edges. No dry spots. Plain deliciousness in every bite. That being said, when I showed the nutritional information to my friend, her eyes bugged out a bit at the 30mg of cholesterol per serving. Luckily for me, the doctors always tell me off regarding my low-cholesterol levels - maybe I just need to make these brownies more often? Fine by me!!