A diet cupcake seems like a bit of an oxymoron, right?
Still, if a cupcake has a quarter of the carbohydrates, a quarter of the fat, that a regular cupcake would, you can’t not call it a diet cupcake. They even have fruit in them (thanks to the addition of cranberry orange relish), and so could be related, very loosely if at all, with muffins.
Cupcakes that are a quarter of the size, so long as you don’t go eating a stack of them, totally could work with a diet plan. You’re getting all of the calories in a diminished amount, but don’t need to deprive yourself from their goodness. Deprivation is definitely one of those things that I have trouble believing in.
I baked almost 200 of these for a birthday party, and there were none left the next morning, so they apparently need not be viewed as a diet cupcake. But if you’re teetering on decisions, just remember that this indulgence is a small one, take that bite.
Cranberry Orange Fairy Cakes
(adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Fairy Cakes)
Ingredients125 g butter
125 g sugar
2 medium eggs
125 g flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
splash of cream
Directions- Preheat the oven to 400° F.
- Mix together the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda and vanilla extract.
- Splash in cream a little bit at a time, until the batter gets kind of droopy, so that it slouches when you stop stirring it.
- Spoon into a mini cupcake pan, or a regular cupcake pan.
- Spoon a little bit of cranberry orange relish onto the batter in each cupcake well.
- Bake for 8 minutes or until the cupcakes test clean and begin to brown (18-20 minutes for regular sized).
- Allow to cool completely, and then ice with cream cheese icing.
- Enjoy responsibly
The very first of your blog recipes ever tried was the Cranberry/orange relish. It is fantastic on its own but as you point out in the Fairy Cakes recipe it has a lot to contribute as an addition as well.
I have made it a regular part of cornmeal muffin batter and it is over-the-top good. So I can imagine how terrific it would be in the Fairy Cakes. I don’t intend to just imagine it, however, I have a batch of cranberry orange relish subdivided into half/cup portions in my deep freeze at this very moment all ready to go. No promises regarding eating the the Fairy Cakes in moderate amounts: “too much of a good thing is just the right amount.”