Holiday Baking: Lightened Up Apple Brown Betty

Growing up, we went up to my Uncle Bob’s in Connecticut often. He cooked a lot and one of my favorites (besides his Turkey Soup) was his famous Apple Brown Betty, which was always served during the holidays. Since I am following Weight Watchers, I decided to try to lighten it up a little. I used Domino® Light, which is an all natural pure cane sugar & stevia blend with half the calories of sugar — a savings of over a 350 calories in each cup! By blending pure cane Domino® Sugar with a naturally sweet extract from the stevia plant, they’ve created a delicious sweetener with no artificial ingredients and just 5 calories per serving. Which is a win-win for me! Instead of using granola cereal, which is what the original recipe called for, I chose Bear Naked’s FIT granola, which has lower fat and lower sugar than regular granola (and more protein).

 

Ingredients:

To make a 1 serving:

2 large apples. These should be hard apples, so use either Fuji, Green Granny Smith, Courtland or Golden Delicious. Don’t use MacIntosh or McGowan.
1 Teaspoon Domino Light Sugar Stevia Blend (which is the equivalent to the sweetness of 2 teaspoons of sugar)
1/2  Cups of Granola – instead of using a regular granola with raisins and dates like this called for, I used Bear Naked’s FIT Triple Berry Crunch Granola (a cup has 8 grams of fat, 12 grams of sugar and 12 grams of protein). You can really use any granola for this, I just wanted one that was lower fat, had lower sugar and protein.
Raisins (optional)
1/2 Teaspoon of Cinnamon, sprinkled on the Granola
1 Tablespoon of buttery spread. I used Smart Balance. Choose the lighter version if you are watching your weight

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Peel apples and cut into 1/8’s.

Layer the apples, granola, sugar, cinnamon, and buttery spread into a small pyrex dish or ramekins. I chose to make three servings, so I used three pyrex dishes. Since I am following Weight Watchers, I portioned everything out first, so I could know exactly how many points I was using.

I liked baking with Domino Light, this Sugar/Stevia Blend, which gave me the sweetness for the dish, with half the amount of sugar.

Bake for 1 hour and then let cool.

Serve with light vanilla ice cream, a vanilla nonfat frozen Greek yogurt (Trader Joe’s makes a good one) or fat free cool whip. I didn’t want to really calculate the points for this, I counted it as 6. I also calculated it as a baked apple, so it may be lower points that I actually accounted for. The next time I make it, I’ll reduce the cereal to 1/4 cup to lower the points. It was DELICIOUS though! My husband, who does not follow Weight Watchers, had his for breakfast the next day (kids may really go for this too). But for my kids, I would add more cereal and some almonds for protein. I’d use the Domino Light, because I do watch their sugar intake and this is a great way to still give them that sweetness, but with sugar. The original recipe called for brown sugar also, but I was out…