The 37-Calorie Brownie

    In retrospect, I think the notion of a delicious brownie with only 37-calories per square (perhaps that random odd number chosen to boost believability) must have started as an urban legend for which some internet trickster first thought up a plausable-looking recipe then posted it on Facebook accompanied by a photo of the most perfect-looking brownies imaginable:

Photo of the 37-Calorie Brownie

       Incredible as it seems, belief in the existence of the sublime 37-Calorie Brownie must have spread, as for a while its recipe was being shared every day up and down my Facebook timeline:
    37-Calorie Brownies:
    3/4 cup non-fat vanilla Greek yogurt
    1/4 cup skim milk
    1/2 cup cocoa powder
    1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
    1/2 cup Truvia, or any natural stevia-based sweetner that pours like sugar
    1 egg
    1/3 cup apple sauce   
    1 teaspoon baking powder
    Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease a square 8x8" baking dish.  Combine all ingredients in blender, blend until smooth, about 1 minute.  Pour into prepared dish, bake for 15 minutes.  Cool.
     I, too, was seduced by this recipe, copying and printing it and slipping it into my recipe folder where it sat for a week or two.
    What gullible dreamers we mortals be.
    Anyway, last night I went out and bought the ingredients and this morning I made a batch of 37-Calorie Brownies, meticulously following the recipe's instructions.
    My pan of brownies came out of the oven looking like a sample swath of stained brown industrial carpeting:

Side view:

Theirs:                                                                                  Mine:

    And how did my 37-Calorie Brownies taste?
    Vile.  Like inedible swill, with the consistency of a wet sponge and a cloying nasty after-taste that wouldn't go away.
    Now, granted, I'm not a chocolate lover and, in truth, my tastes and opinions in general are sometimes out of sync with the those embraced by the population at large. So it occurred to me that maybe I was  missing something, some chocolatey charm  in these brownies that a true chocolate connoisseur would appreciate.
    So I went online and looked up "37 Calorie Brownie".  The site I reached directed me to the original Facebook post that first published the 37 Calorie Brownie recipe a couple of years before it started showing up on my timeline a few weeks ago.
    Here's a sampling of the comments:
    "I'm sorry but these were the worst brownies I've EVER tried. I couldn't even do a bite."
    "Just made these, AWFUL, AWFUL, AWFUL!!!!!! Don't waste your ingredients!"
    "They are nasty...the texture is somewhat gummy. They look nothing like the picture at all either.   
     "very disgusting.       
     "Taste terrible."
     "Super gross!"
    You get the idea.
    Bye-bye brownies.