Oh Girl! Breakfast Brownies

How can a person who's lost so much weight eat a rich dessert like this? It's not often that I crave hard core sweets, but when I do, I have a little trick. Instead of eating this type of food as dessert, I use it to replace a meal.

I don't know if it's because dieting for so many years ruined my metabolism, or if it's just the way I'm built (for the record, the former gets my vote), the fact is that I can't take in a large quantity of food and maintain my weight. If I were to have dessert in addition to a meal, I'd have taken on too much for for the day. I get around this by having my dessert as a meal - say, caramel popcorn for lunch, or ice cream for dinner. This has the additional benefit of placing all of my focus on that one delicious treat, rather than having it as an afterthought to a full meal.

At 5am this morning, I awoke with the knowledge that I had to have brownies, so I made them - for breakfast. And why not! My brownie was the perfect accompaniment to sunrise and a stiff cup of coffee.

I used Nigella Lawson's recipe, which uses almond meal as a foundation. It is the only gluten-free brownie recipe that I've gotten to turn out well. Her recipe calls for walnuts, which I adore in brownies. But I had none, and wasn't about to bike to the store to get some at that hour, so I added a cream cheese swirl instead. Also, her recipe doesn't use salt, but I found the batter absolutely needed it to balance the rich sweetness.

8 oz. semisweet chocolate
1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 c. almond meal
2 generous pinches salt

6 oz. cream cheese
1 egg
1 Tbsp. sugar

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar and vanilla. Beat the eggs into the mixture, then add almond meal and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together softened cream cheese, egg, and sugar. Pour brownie batter into a 8x8" pan, dollop spoonfuls of cream cheese mixture on top, then swirl with a knife. Bake at 325 degrees (F) for 30 minutes, or until set halfway to center of pan.

These came out super duper gooey. I enjoyed them more after they were completely cooled, and will probably cook them a bit longer next time. My other tip is to eat one, and freeze the rest in single-serving portions.