You know how anything that taste goooood must be baaaaad for you? Well, it’s true. For example, try cooking a French dish without butter. It’ll taste merde. Suggest making pizza without cheese? Vaffanculo. Or how about Barry’s tea without milk? G’way and sh*te.
In short, it doesn’t work. However, I haven’t yet quite learned my lesson, and my latest foray into attempting to make sinful food a little more angelic I have tried to produce the oxymoron which is low-fat cupcakes.
I scoured the net for alternatives for the unhealthy bits, substituting Canderel for sugar and yoghurt for cream. I found a basic recipe I could adapt and alter, courtesy of Maddie Rudd of Hubpages.com. I then abandoned all attempts at being good and ladelled on top toppings of white chocolate, brown chocolate, icing and Nutella. Oh, and hazelnuts, in the briefest of nods to the Gods of health.
I’m not going to lie and say they were perfect. They weren’t, they didn’t rise as much as they should and they weren’t nearly as fluffy as professional versions are. But hey, I’m learning. Has anybody got any ‘healthy’ baking recipes out there I could try out? I’m trying to hone a skill without killing off a boyfriend!
Ingredients – Makes 12
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour + 3/4 cup sugar * + 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 2/3 cup low fat yogurt + 1/2 cup low fat milk + 4 egg whites
- 1 tsp baking powder + ½ tsp baking soda + ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
*bear with me fellow pass Maths students, one full cup of sugar is about 200g, therefore ¾ of a cup = 150g, which has to be divided by 10 for the lighter consistency of substitute sugar = 15g of Canderel. *faintswithmentalexhaustion*
Instructions (I love how easy these are, kudos to the author)
1. Preheat oven to 200C or gas mark 6
2. Mix dry and wet ingredients separately, then stir together
3. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake papers or spray with low-cal spray / rub with low-fat butter
4. Fill each cup 2/3 full with chocolaty batter
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes
6. Remove, test inside by piercing centre with a kebab prong / toothpick – if it comes out clean they’re done.
7. Serve and decorate (I used icing sugar & crystallised ginger, white chocolate and milk chocolate flakes, and Nutella and hazelnuts. Yes, basically everything that was in my cupboard).