Peanut Butter Dirt Cake

It's that time of year again to make my husband a homemade birthday treat! He normally wants dirt cake but this time he requested something with peanut butter, and suggested maybe a peanut butter dirt cake. I had not made one before but I was sure other people had had this idea before, so I went looking for recipes to try and decided on this one because it sounded pretty straightforward and made a reasonable amount.

Notes:

• Used a combination of Oreos and Nutter Butter cookie crumbs rather than just Oreos.
• Added some extra peanut butter (3-4 tbsp) to the fluff mixture because my husband wanted to taste more peanut butter and less cream cheese.
  
• Made a sugar free version for myself by using powdered Swerve (finely ground erythritol granules that are used as a powdered sugar substitute) and natural style peanut butter without any added sugar in equal amounts as the original recipe.
• I had planned to try this recipe from Sugar Free Londoner to make sugar free chocolate cookie crumbs but didn't actually get that far because I was too busy devouring the peanut butter fluff part lol.
  

Verdict: I only had a small bite of the regular one but many who tried it really loved it, including my husband who requested it for his birthday so I'd definitely make it again. I LOVED the sugar free version -- most of the ingredients are keto friendly to begin with so it seemed like it would convert well, and I'm glad it did. I immediately made more once it was gone because I still wanted more and all the ingredients were there.

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RECIPE: Peanut Butter Dirt Pudding (Cooking with Carlee)

Keto Fudgy Brownies

A big reason I haven't posted new recipe results in a while is because I have had to implement major diet changes this year for medical reasons, which involved cutting out all sugar, grain, and starchy foods (essentially a medically supervised ketogenic diet) and it took some time to figure out what I can still make and eat that fits within my new guidelines and adjust to my new eating habits. Thankfully all my experience with cooking has made it fairly easy to identify foods that will work for me. It has been going well and I am feeling a lot better already.

With my birthday coming up I was determined to find a recipe for a sweet but not sugary treat. I hadn't really been able to have a proper dessert since April and was missing it a lot. These seemed fairly straightforward to make and had ingredients in them that I could find at nearby grocery stores, and unlike a lot of "keto friendly" store bought treats with weirdly calculated portion sizes or online recipes these fit well within the carbohydrate budget I am supposed to stick to (no "net carb" bullshit here).

Notes:

• I bought several kinds of sugar free chocolate chips to try and I found I prefer the kind with some sweetener in them (Lily's dark chocolate were my favorite), though I'll admit the Lindt 100% cacao bar has a really wonderful texture and tastes great for having no sweeteners whatsoever. I will not be buying Pascha chips again.
• This was my first experience baking with allulose and while it generally acts like sugar, it has this aftereffect sort of like a mild acid burn, like when you eat a lot of sour candy, but even after only eating small amounts. I guess in a way it's good because it will prevent me from overeating it because I don't like that sensation haha.
  
• I found it hard to tell whether they were properly done. By the time the testing skewer definitively comes out clean they are likely overdone because they'll keep cooking in the pan a bit, so the second time I made them I removed them from the oven when the skewer was mostly clean.
  

Verdict: They were really good! Of course the texture is slightly different from a regular brownie. You can tell they are not the same. But for what it is it's very good. I'm glad I was able to make myself a satisfying chocolate birthday treat. I have made these again since the initial attempt and still really liked them so I am definitely planning to keep this as a go-to.

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RECIPE: Best Fudgy Keto Brownies (Arman Liew, The Big Man's World)

Updating to include weights of ingredients because it was a lot easier to make that way.

3/4 cup (6 oz, 170 g) butter
1/2 cup (3 oz, 85 g) keto chocolate chips divided
1/2 cup (60 g) almond flour
1/4 cup (20 g) cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup (115 g) allulose
3 large eggs