Instant Pot Applesauce Brownies

I was craving brownies but I wanted to be able to eat more than a little tiny slice without breaking my calorie "bank". So I looked up applesauce brownies (you can substitute applesauce for butter) thinking that someone else's recipe would be better than slowly modifying a butter brownie recipe.

And it was. I found one at Something Swanky that was just was I was looking for. It was an oven recipe, but originally, that's all I had.

Well, it was sort of what I was looking for. I wanted it even lighter in calories, so I substituted an egg white for the second egg. It was delicious, but more like cake than brownies. I wanted brownies. (Although I'm keeping that in mind if I want to make chocolate cake!)

I had recently gotten a pressure cooker, the Instant Pot, which, since it cooks under pressure and using steam, would likely make my recipe with the egg white substitution more brownie-like (it would squish the cake texture back down).

It surely did. A bit too much, actually. Now it was so dense it was like dough (but it was definitely cooked).

Things in the recipe got changed. Added, subtracted, modified, until I was finally happy with the taste and texture of the final result. The recipe is below the pictures.

brownie batter in 6" pan

brownie pan covered in foil on trivet in pressure cooker

brownies turned out onto plate

A 60 calorie wedge of delicious brownie!

Instant Pot Applesauce Brownies

Ingredients:
Wet
1/2 C applesauce
1/4 C turbinado sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 egg whites
Dry
1/4 C stevia baking blend (1 for 1 swap for sugar)
1/2 C. white whole wheat flour (60 g)
1/4 C. oat flour (30 g)
1/4 C. chocolate cocoa powder (20 g)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
Mix (whisk) all wet ingredients together in a bowl large enough to hold all the batter. In a smaller bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together. Spray 6" round pan with cooking oil.

Whisk dry ingredients into wet until no dry bits are left. Pour into sprayed pan. Tightly cover pan with aluminum foil (the batter doesn't rise that much).

Put a cup of water into the Instant Pot's inner liner. Put the trivet into the liner. Put the pan on top of the trivet with the trivet handles up so you have something to pull the pan out with.

Set on Manual for 40 minutes. Do a natural pressure release (wait for the pressure to go down) before removing pan. Place a plate on top of the pan and then, holding both together (it will be hot so use heat gloves, etc), flip the two over. The brownie will slide right out onto the plate (if you have a non-stick pan).

Cut the brownie into 12 slices. (Cut it into quarters, cut each quarter into three.) You do all of this while it's still warm. Cover and place into fridge to cool.

Brownies are good reheated for 10-15 seconds in the microwave on high or simply room temperature.

Nutrition information per 1 slice:
Calories 60
Protein 2 g
Fat 0.6 g
Carbs 13 g