Holy Moley, I Can't Believe It's Chocolate Fudge

My friend Jenn (two Ns), knowing of my love of all things pumpkin, lent me her Hungry Girl cookbook to peruse because she said the HG is big on using pumkin puree in her recipes.

If you're not familiar with Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World by Lisa Lillien (St Martins, 2008) you should check it out. She's created lower cal, lower fat versions of popular foods, comfort foods and other yummy goodnesses...including chocolate fudge. And that brings us to tonight's recipe. Chocolate fudge that uses pumpkin as it's base, how could I pass this up?  What follows is based on her recipe, but I didn't go the low cal route, so be warned.

It's an interesting taste, chocolate without being overly chocolatey. You can taste the pumpkin but it's not overwhelming and the peanut butter is very subtle. But that probably has more to do with the fact I blended more than I swirled (see below). It's very different, but I like it, I like it alot.

All-in-all, 3 ingredients = 1 tasty treat.

Dreamy Chocoalte Peanut Butter Fudge
Hungry Girl, page 171 (recipe paraphrased)

1 box chewy fudge brownie mix
2 cups canned pumpkin (= 1 can + a tidge)
2 tbsp creamy peanut butter

Mix the brownie mix and pumpkin until well blended. Will be just a bit thicker than regular brownie mix.

Spray down a 9x9 baking pan (or 7x10 like I did).  Spoon the batter in.and spread out.

Plop your peanut butter on top and using a knife or spatula, swirl the peanut butter across the brownie mix.  I got a little enthusiastic, so mine is less swirly and more spread out.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

When it's done, remove from oven and allow to cool.  Once it's cooled down, cover pan with foil and set in the fridge for about 2 hours before cutting up to serve.

NOTES

One can of pumpkin is just short of two cups. So if you didn't want to open a second can just for that last ounce, I think the batter would still work okay.  I would just cook it for a little less time to make sure it doesn't dry out.

For each of her recipes in the book, Hungry Girl has interesting notes and tidbits about related foods.  She also provides the Per Serving breakdown of calories, far, sodium, carbs, fiber, sugars and protein.  Really useful if you are counting those. If you're interested in finding the book -- ISBN 978-0-312-37742-7.