My "cheat": Gluten-free bacon brownies; w/tallow and ghee page

[rkd80]

Hey folks,

Just wanted to kind of share and maybe ask what you think of treat that I allow myself once in a while.
I get a premium gluten-free brownie mix; either from Whole Foods or the Red Mills mix.

The ingredients vary a bit, but are generally:

cane juice, cocoa, potato starch, brown rice flour, tapioca flour, baking soda, xantham gum.

The stats vary a bit as well, but within a few grams:

Serving size: 1 brownie

Total carbs: 27g
Total sugar: 17g

Then I add two pastured eggs, some water and mix it all up.

Then I take two uncured pieces of bacon and mince it up really fine. Then I melt down some pastured tallow and pastured ghee, about 1/2 cup (1:3 ratio here). Mix it all up real well, make sure it is more liquid than you would normally expect and into the oven: 375 for about 35 minutes (this will cook longer than usual). Check on it, might actually take 45 minutes!

The end result is a chewy, NON crumbly, non-soft cake-like brownie with the occasional bacon surprise.

The carb/sugar content is obviously on the high side, but messing around with making my own brownies has never yielded much success, although I am sure a combination of organic dark chocolate/stevia these things can become far healthier.

Thoughts?

[j3nn]

Sounds Delish! I made GF buckeye brownies for my hubby the other day; I used Betty Crocker GF brownie mix which had nearly identical ingredients to the one you posted. Never baked with lard, have to try it!

[rkd80]

I believe lard and tallow differ, but same idea. The grass-fed tallow I have does give a strong taste, so you have to dilute it.

[seaweed]

alot of southern european xmas sweets were traditionally made with lard as they killed the pigs in the autumn and the cows dont usually milk over the winter. polverones is a good example and you can find recipes if you google. i've made these before with wild hog lard and they were nice. i didnt use sweetner as i didnt have any stevia. Spiced Lard Cookies (grain free) i would imagine you could do some kind of chocolate version too.