123 calorie Pumpkin Brownies

So recently I bought myself some pumpkin puree in a can (and it took some time to find it), and then realised I didn’t actually have a recipe to use it so spent a bit of time looking at different ideas and kind of done a hybrid of the ones I have found. And the best bit, it is healthy!!

So first of all you’ll need the ingredients:

Cake:
290 grams all-purpose flour (about 2 1/4 cups)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon ground almonds
1/4 teaspoon salt
200 grams light brown sugar (muscavado)
57 grams cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond essence
1 teaspoon orange essence
2 large eggs
1 can pumpkin puree
Cooking spray

Frosting:
30 grams butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon orange essence
200 grams cream cheese
2 cups sifted icing sugar (more may be required)

Making the Cake:

Firstly, preheat your oven to 175°c

Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground almond and salt in a large bowl. Stir these ingredients together using a whisk. (If you are using a measuring cup, ensure to level off with a knife for accuracy).

Add butter to a separate bowl and soften with the back of a wooden spoon. Once softened, add brown sugar and cream together with vanilla, almond and orange essence. Add the eggs, one at a time, to the butter and sugar mixture, using an electric whisk to combine. To this, add the pumpkin puree and mix well with a wooden spoon

To the flour mixture, spoon in the wet ingredients (try doing this in thirds). Fold the mixtures together until all wet ingredients are into the flour mixture and are well combined.

Spray a 13x9 inch baking tray and add the batter mixture (Now I don’t own one of these so I used two different baking trays and divided the mixture between the two). Level off with a palette knife or spatula.
Bake for 20-25 minute or until a wooden cocktail stick comes out clean.

Allow to fully cool on a wire rack.

To prepare the frosting, combine 2 tablespoons butter, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/2 teaspoon orange essence, and cream cheese in a medium bowl. Beat the mixture with an electric whisk on a medium speed until well combined.

Gradually add the powdered sugar, beating until well combined.

Spread frosting evenly over top of cake.

This mixture is very dense so please don’t be waiting for the mixture to rise because it’s not that type of cake, in fact I guess it’s more like a pumpkin brownie. My cake mixture made 25, 9 from my smaller tin and 16 from my bigger one.

If I’m being honest, I think I eeked out my mixture a bit too much but still very yummy…almost like a carrot cake taste.

I use my fitness pal a lot of the time and this helps calculate the calories and with a total of 123 calories, including frosting the pumpkin brownies are brilliant as a healthy snack!

I will definitely be making this again.

I have a blog that I keep my recipes so have a look at http://www.tumblr.com/blog/katyswands
Hope you enjoy :0) x