Ch-ch-ch-chia!

I heart my chia seeds. Really and truly. But now I love them even more because I recently made a wonderful discovery about my wonder food! (And if you still haven’t tried them, I won’t bore you with their awesomeness. Just try them. You can thank me later!!)

Source

So, to go in that same vein, I love to bake. Not the best cook (as we all know!) but I really enjoy baking. Unfortunately, I have to be careful because I live by myself and an entire pan of brownies does not a waistline make. And I have no self-control, so if there is an entire strawberry pie, I will eat it. Preferably over a weekend, but it’s very possible that I could do it in one sitting. It’s a gift. Don’t judge.

Bottom line? I try my best to come up with healthier ways to bake. Imagine my excitement when I read online that chia gel (1 part seed to 9 parts water) could replace half of the required butter in any given recipe! I was skeptical  but of course I wanted to give it a try. I’ve really noticed some big health differences since I started taking the chia gel, so I try to incorporate it into as much of my food as possible. Why not mix it in with my daily 16 portions of sugar?!

I made brownies with it first, and I have to say, I was super unsure. It looked really funny in the bowl, sitting there next to the butter:

I think the recipe called for a full stick of butter (8 Tbsp) so I just put in a half of a stick with 4 tbsp of chia gel. It made the batter kind of look a little awkward though, not gonna lie. Almost like there were lots of ants crawling around inside the bowl 🙂

Long story (not so) short, it worked! I could show you a pic of the brownies but..well, they’re all gone. My bad. And for the record, I baked a strawberry pie this past weekend (from scratch, thank you very much!) and I used the same technique while making the crust. Yum yum. Total success.

The way I see it, this means I can inhale TWICE as many baked goods, right?

How do you like that logic?!