Creating own recipes

I often feel like I want to bake something, and I get these little cravings for sweet things off and on every now and then. The problem is that I am often alone in that feeling, as the guy I live with is not much for sweets. Because of this, and the fact that he intentionally avoid sugar (I try to stick a bit with him on this one, but hey, I'm weak) we never have sugar at home. Also, no sweeteners have ever existed in my house as I feel they're worse than sugar. So lately I have been thinking, I know this is dangerous, and realised that I should try to do things that will hit the spot for me and my sweet cravings, but with no sugar in it so that we both can enjoy it and not have to buy sugar that will not get used. I try to make things both of us will like whenever I make something that he will be there for.

So the other day I was craving brownies. Bad. So I googled it; "Sugar free brownies", endless results! Yes! Figuring this will be easier than I thought I started clicking them one by one, every single one of them had sweeteners instead, and lots of it. I spent a good 30 minutes trying different searches and going through recipe after recipe. Sidenote; how annoying is it to get everyone's life story for 3 pages before you get to the actual recipe? That's when I decided I will always have the recipe first of every post, or completely on it's own, if people want the story they can get it, if they want jut the recipe it's right there for them to use. Simple.

So after spending more time than I felt should have been necessary I decided to just bake something from scratch. I have baked so many different types of cakes, cookies and bread things in my life, surely I have a natural knack for it by now? However, even though I am used to changing recipes as I go, I have never tried to bake something without at least some sort of guidelines for what to put in or how much. So this is new territory for me, but a challenge I felt ready to accept. So I looked in the pantry and thought about what should go in to the brownies (might be worth mentioning I'm also vegan since 5 years back, so eggs are out of the question). Turned out we didn't even have flour, as we had used it all the night before making flatbread.

I decided to make banana bread as well as brownies, and figured I can do some sort of mix of the two for the brownie mix. So I set off to the store and picked up things I needed, flour, bananas, walnuts and baking powder. They only had self-raising flour left in the store (thanks panic buyers buying up all the things),so skipped baking powder. I also looked to see if they had some chocolate chips I could add in to it, but there was nothing for a vegan around there, so I moved on.

Back home I was straight in to it and started mushing the bananas, getting the base going with bananas and flour, pinch of salt. As I had decided to just do it all from scratch not only did I not really know what to put in to the mix, but I had no clue of how much, trying to channel my inner Nigella, Gordon and Jamie I splashed about with the flour and olive oil, mixing and trying to figure out what consistency is wanted at this stage, realising I hadn’t separated the two mixes yet, and the brownie mix has more dry stuff coming as well with the cacao powder. So I divided them in to two bowls and got in to the banana bread first, thinking that’s simple. Touch of nutmeg and throw some cinnamon in there with a pinch of salt, get the texture just right and then put it to the side.

Brownies turned out to be a little trickier, I wanted it more gooey, so you get that nice mush when you bite in to them, but still have that almost crispy outside so it sticks together, don’t want it all runny and going everywhere. I threw a bit of apple sauce in there to get it a bit sweeter yet, bananas on their own might not be enough, got the cacao powder and a bit more flour in to it. It got to a point when I had no idea if I was even looking at brownie mix anymore, or if I need to find another name for it, browniebread? Brownanabread? Brownana? Cacaobread? Bananacake? Chocolate loaf?

Anyway, getting off track here. I decided it would have to do, and crushed walnuts in to the mix, and threw some gojiberries in too, thinking they’d go nice with the chocolate whatever this was. Both of the whatyamacallits in to the oven and put the timer on. I made us dinner and ate while waiting for them to do their thing. The so-called brownie thing came out about 20 minutes before the bananabread, and I let it sit for a second.

All in all, I don’t know if I would call it a success, but they were both tasty enough, and Mr No-sugar had half of them both, so we were on the winning side of the scale I reckon. Definitely happy with it, I could eat them without frowning, and I made something completely from scratch that was both edible and hit that sweet spot. I need to continue working on the recipes and continue playing with it, but at least I have a base to work from, and I am no longer scared of doing just that! Nigella look out, Q’s coming for you (is her show still on? She’s a Queen either way).

Don’t be scared to try it out, as it turns out, Google does not have the answer to all of our questions, sometimes you need to find the answers yourself completely disconnected. This can seem scary in this super-connected world, but I promise you’ll feel better about it, and yourself afterwards. Plus, who knows, you might find out new talents you didn’t even know you had. There are only positives and potential awesomeness to come from it, and you can always look at other recipes first to get a feel for kind of what type of ingredients seem to be essential for what you’re doing. Maybe you’ll invent something completely new and different and your whatever it is will be all the rage when the lockdown is over and all the people eat out again. Most importantly; have fun with it.