Here is part two in my catch up from all the amazingness that has been happening that I haven’t had time to post about! For Mona’s birthday, she requested marble cupcakes. I found a fabulous recipe at How Sweet Eats that originally came from Martha Stewart. Steve and I woke up at 6:30 so we could bake and photograph before he left for work. While we worked on our food, the puppies also worked on theirs
After Clementine inhaled her food as if we had never fed her before (that’s why there’s a can in her food bowl–to slow her down), she spent her time working on her cuteness
Which I’m pretty sure she has down pat
My Swaps:
- Whole wheat pastry flour for regular flour (+protein, +fiber)
- Unsweetened vanilla almond milk for milk (-calories)
- Reduced fat buttermilk for heavy cream (-fat, -calories, -saturated fat)
- Organic cane sugar/Splenda combo for sugar (-sugar, -calories)
- Unsweetened applesauce for butter (-fat, -calories, -saturated fat)
**Note, I usually swap egg whites for whole eggs, but this time I didn’t. Not for any reason other than I didn’t want to use the extra eggs. I’m cheap. You can sub egg whites 😉
Skinnified Mini Marble Cupcakes
yield 48 mini cupcakes
- 1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour, sifted
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
- 1/3 cup reduced fat buttermilk
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/2 cup organic cane sugar (or just plain ol’ sugar)
- 1/3 cup Splenda
- 3 large eggs (or 5 egg whites)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup boiling water
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Sift together flour, salt and baking power.
3. In a separate bowl, combine milks.
4. In an electric mixer, combine applesauce, Splenda and sugar.
5. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated.
6. Beat in vanilla.
7. Add in flour mixture in 3 bathes, alternating with two additions of milk mixture (flour, milk, flour, milk, flour) and beating until combined.
8. For chocolate batter, measure out 1 cup batter, and transfer to another bowl.
9. Combine cocoa and boiling water into the bowl. Stir into 1 cup of reserved batter.
10. Fill lined mini cupcake tins half way with vanilla batter.
11. Top with chocolate batter so that each tin is 3/4 full.
12. Swirl with toothpick.
13. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
14. Cool and top with chocolate frosting (recipe below)
Unfortunately, I never did get a frosted picture, but I tasted the frosting and it was pretty delicious so here’s the recipe for that too!
Skinnified Chocolate Buttercream (or as skinnified as buttercream can be):
- 1/2 cup light whipped butter, softened
- 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbs fat free half and half
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
Directions:
1. With an electric mixer, beat butter until fluffy.
2. Add vanilla, half and half, cocoa powder and 1/2 powdered sugar.
3. Beat, then slowly add the rest of powdered sugar, scraping down sides of the bowl.
4. Top cupcakes and enjoy!
