Sometimes, you just need to be a bit naughty when it comes to food. Following a strict nutrition plan has never worked for me. “You can’t eat this.” I’ll eat it if I want. “You can’t eat that.” I’ll eat it if I want. Balance! I’m not going to eat chocolate brownies all day, every day. Could you imagine a life where you cut out all the naughty stuff, all of the time. How boring would that be!

If you’re going to be a little bit naughty though, it’s good to know what options are out there. By simply replacing one ingredient, you could save yourself a whole bunch of calories. In this case, it’s a sugar alternative called Hermesetas.

Isn’t it frustrating that cake tastes so good but is so bad for your waist line. You can literally pick up a tub of brownies from your local supermarket for a £1. So not only is the product tasty but it’s cheap too.

Before I unleash this delicious chocolate brownie recipe that will save you 90% of the sugar calories, I wanted to briefly talk to you about sugar. We all need energy to function and sugar is one of those ingredients. However, free sugars should not make up more than 5% of the energy you get from food and drink each day. Free sugars are sugars added to foods and drinks by manufacturers, cooks or consumers, and also sugars found naturally in honey, syrups and fruit juice. Adults should have no more than 30g of free sugars a day. This is roughly the equivalent to seven sugar cubes. Balance.

I don’t think I need to tell you why having too much sugar in your diet is bad but here’s a quick list! Sugar causes glucose levels to spike and plummet. It increases the risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Sugar accelerates ageing and causes tooth decay.

When my eldest came home recently with baking homework, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to use Hermesetas and to show you guys how my family and I save a whole bunch of calories when baking those ‘sweet tooth’ recipes. We normally eat a good balance of what we call healthy and unhealthy foods throughout the week. There’s that word again, balance.

To make this delicious chocolate brownie recipe, you’re going to need the following ingredients:

• Two eggs
• Pinch of salt
• 100g of self raising flour
• 20g of Hermesetas Granulated sweetener
• 50g of dark chocolate
• 100g of margarine
• Chocolate chips (optional)

Firstly, heat the oven to 180°C / 350°F, gas mark 4.

Melt the margarine and chocolate over hot water. Remove from the heat and cool.

Measure and stir in the Hermesetas Granulated sweetener and add both eggs. Mix together.

Then mix in the self raising flour and a pinch of salt.

Don’t forget to grease the baking tray to avoid sticking!

Pour the whole mixture into your baking tin.

Move the baking tray from side to side to spread the mixture out evenly.

Add those chocolate chips but don’t do what I did. One in the mixture, two in your mouth, haha!

Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes. The top should be crispy and the inside soft. Leave in the tin to cool down before cutting into squares.

As you can see, the finished product looks rather tasty and they were! Everyone loved them!

If you were to use normal sugar, per piece this would’ve been 193 calories (not including the chocolate chips). As we used Hermesetas Granulated sweetener, the calories per piece was reduced to 133. The whole recipe of 12 pieces should’ve been a whopping 800 calories of sugar. By simply replacing the sugar with Hermesetas, this was drastically reduced to just 72 calories. Now read that last part again.

If you guys have a sweet tooth like us or just want to reduce your intake of sugar, look no further than Hermesetas. Available as a granulated sweetener (ideal for cooking and baking), mini sweeteners (ideal for coffee and tea) and liquid (ideal for desserts, yoghurt and drinks). For more recipes, please click here.

Thanks for reading and you’re welcome!

*Disclaimer: This was a collaborative post with Hermesetas. All words and opinions are my own.