Whenever I see a low fat dessert recipe I feel I MUST try it and this one sounded too good to pass up. When I stumbled upon a blog called Sweet Tooth, Sweet Life, I knew I'd love it! The first recipe I saw was her pumpkin spice cupcake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, low in fat no less. How can you go wrong with the cupcake recipe of a health conscious, dessert lovin' blogger? Hello, you can't!
The cupcakes themselves are extremely delicious. I had trouble with the frosting and didn't care for the taste of it in large quantity so I scraped most off before indulging. I think I screwed that part up because as I was dumping all that powdered sugar into the mix I started to really freak out. All that sugar! And I had to buy it especially for this recipe since we don't do white sugar anymore (except for on french toast, of course). The guilt got to me so I stopped with the sugar after about 2 cups and my frosting was rather runny. Everybody else liked it. To me though, it just didn't have much flavor. But, you can feel free to give it a try or sub your own full fat, yummy cream cheese frosting. I thought the cupcakes tasted great all by themselves and didn't need any frosting anyway.
Cupcakes:
1 box spice cake mix
15 oz canned pumpkin
3/4 cup egg whites (I purchase these by the carton)
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
Icing:
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 oz reduced fat cream cheese
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp honey
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tbsp milk
Heat oven to 350. Blend cake mix, pumpkin, egg, applesauce, water, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Pour batter into prepared muffin cups to about 3/4 full.
Bake for 18-20 minutes or to desired doneness (I like to just slightly under cook them to retain that yummy moistness). Cool completely before frosting. Makes 24.
To prepare frosting, cream butter until fluffy. Add cream cheese and beat to combine completely. Add the honey and cinnamon. Beat in milk and powdered sugar one cup at a time until you reach desired consistency. Now frost those delicious mini cakes!
The frosting is very pretty with the little cinnamon specks.
Anybody have a good low fat cream cheese frosting recipe? Purty please?
They look scrumptious Betty!! I have to find the time to bake this weekend since it is our Thanksgiving and I may just give these a go. I will look through my heart-friendly recipies to see if I can find a yummy, somewhat healthy recipe and I will share ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks Gaspegirl. I love things like this this time of year. Happy Thanksgiving!!
ReplyDeleteYummy!
ReplyDeleteSadly, I don't have a lower-fat, lower sugar cream cheese frosting option for you. :-( But... maybe you can just top them with a coarse brown sugar (like Turbinado) before baking to give them a bit of crunch and pizzazz for less calories and less sugar. I like that sugar on my cookies and muffins, myself. ;-)
Thanks Melissa, that is a great idea AND I have some on hand. Next batch will be crunchily topped! :)
ReplyDeleteI didn't see this post about the Pumpkin Spice Cakes. They look so YUMMY. I have to try them some day.
ReplyDeleteThanks FitMama. I do hope you get to try them out. I really loved the cupcake part even without the icing.
ReplyDelete