Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Brownie Muffins: Frugal Tip or Portion Control


My husband's favorite dessert in the whole wide world is a big, fat brownie topped with raspberry ice cream. Being the loving wife that I am, I am happy to oblige.

Our problem is that when I make a pan of brownies, the pan mysteriously disappears in a matter of hours. Every time one of us walks by the pan, we cut off just one more piece. Just one tiny piece won't hurt. And that is NOT good for us or our waistline.

While Christmas shopping back in December, I noticed a Brownie pan at a home goods store with a price tag of $29.99. When I saw the pan, I thought to myself, 'that is just a glorified muffin pan'.

Light bulb moment

There was a big football game on one night so I bought our favorite brownie mix. While I love my Homemade Brownies with Homemade Whipped Cream, brownies are one item that I occasionally buy/bake/eat from a box.

I poured the brownie batter mix into my 12-muffin pan and baked for about 35 minutes. My husband would like the brownies done a little longer. He likes the crunchy sides and I don't want to feel like I'm going to break a tooth, so I compromised with 35 minutes.

Genius, now why didn't I think of this before.

After my family of 4 each had a brownie, I put the rest in a freezer bag and popped them in the freezer. And guess what, a week later, they are still in the freezer. We didn't eat them within 24 hours like we normally do.

So essentially I am killing two birds with one stone: our favorite dessert is lasting a lot longer in our home and we don't feel like we're going to bust our zippers by the end of a day.

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This post in linked to Frugal Friday at Life as MOM and Works for Me Wednesday at We Are That Family.

5 comments:

  1. We love baking in our house and I'm a huge advocate of sticking it in the freezer. We have a bit, wrap it up and it goes away (sometimes to the back of the freezer!). When I make cookies I just make the dough and bake a few. I put the dough in a plastic tub and toss it in the refrigerator.
    I love the brownies in the cupcake pan idea. It's ingenious!

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  2. Thanks for the tip. Same thing happens in our house and I had never even considered sticking the brownies/goodies in the freezer.

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  3. Molly - I do the same thing with cookie dough. Except when I'm snacking on the frozen dough, the cookies last much longer. Thanks for the comments.

    Monique - Thanks for the comments.

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  4. I never thought to make brownies in a muffin tin! Definitely gonna try this. You are right about that little bit here and there--before you know it, you've ingested 200 mysterious calories, LOL!

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  5. I am really craving brownies now, and this trick (that I cannot believe I never considered) is sure to save some from my lovely, hungry fiance.

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