Healthy Cupcakes Tutorial

Today's post is a mouthwatering guest post from Pamela of Pamela's Heavenly Treats.  Try to read it without drooling! 

{If you are interested in submitting a guest post, e-mail me and we can talk.} 

 I want to thank Kristin for having me come to talk about healthy desserts.  I started making healthy cupcakes and cookies for my family just to see how they would like it, and they love everything that I make.  So every recipe I stumble upon I tweak it to make it healthy, and 9 times out of 10 it's successful. 

We all love to eat desserts so why not have a healthy dessert?  In my tutorial I will be making Whole Wheat Mini Lemon Blossom Cupcakes, so get a cup of tea or coffee and sit back and enjoy.

We are going to make Mini Lemon Blossom Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting.  I used my new mini cupcake pans by Wilton (those are the best cupcake pans).

I have to say mini cupcakes are so tiny, and you only need a little bit of batter because they will go over the top.  So let's get started:

Here are my ingredients:

2 1/2 cups 100% whole wheat flour

1 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk (recipe in post)

2 fresh eggs

1 tsp white vinegar

1 cup  canola oil or unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp lemon zest

Fresh squeezed juice from the lemon
 

Sift all dry ingredients together (the first 4).

Put all wet ingredients in mixer and mix until everything is together.

Add dry ingredients into your wet mixture and mix until batter is nice and smooth.  Start adding your lemon zest and fresh lemon juice.

Fill your baking cups 1/2 full and bake for 10-12 minutes on 350.  Let cool on cooling rack and then frost.

Here is my FRESH, HOMEMADE buttermilk:
  

1 tbsp white vinegar
Fill with milk to make it 1 cup. Let it sit for about 5 minutes, and there you have it.

Make sure you crack your eggs in a bowl and then put into your blender.  You don't want any eggshells in your batter.

Here is my beautiful Red blender--my favorite color is red-- and my laptop in the back with all my recipes on it.

Mix your wet ingredients together until well blended.

Sift your dry ingredients together and then mix them into your wet ingredients.

While the batter is mixing, whatever flavor cupcake batter you are making, this is the step to put that in. So I zested an entire lemon and then cut it in half and squeezed the fresh juice into my batter (watch the seeds). Start your mixer back up so the lemon zest and fresh juice can incorporate in the batter.  Taste to make sure there is enough flavor.

Then start filling your cupcake pans 1/2 full.  Don't overfill especially the mini cupcakes because then they will start leaning.

Bake for 10-12 minutes on 350.  Let rest on stove top for about 5 minutes, and then take the cupcakes out and put on your wire stand. Cool completely.

Then frost:

1 cup unsalted butter (softened)

1 cup cream cheese (softened)

1 tbsp vanilla extract

3 cups powdered sugar

Lemon zest / fresh squeezed lemon juice

Mix together in blender, put in your piping bag, and make swirls on your mini cupcakes.

There you have it: WHOLE WHEAT MINI LEMON BLOSSOM CUPCAKES. 

I want to thank Kristin - from-my-life for having me.  Please come over and check out all my recipes and pictures of healthy treats at Pamela's Heavenly Treats .