Here's something a little healthier than usual when it comes to cupcakes! We've come up with a novel little recipe which is super easy and packed full of goodness.
Baked into these soft crumbly cupcakes are sweetcorn and any berry you choose.
Pick whatever fruit is fresh & in season or whatever you might find in a frozen berry mix in the freezer aisle. Raspberries work wonderfully as do blackberries or blueberries. For something different I tried some dark cherries I had in the freezer.
Berries and sweetcorn - fresh or freshly frozen - are full of vitamins and other goodies, and provide fibre and a deliciously sweet tangy taste to these cupcakes. There is also yoghurt in this recipe which is packed full of calcium and protein.
There’s a bit of sugar to ensure these treats pass the 'treat-test' and there is no doubt kids will love making and eating them!
Kids (and adults too) will have fun wiwhen they try to guess what exact vegetable and fruits are inside these fun little guys.
You’ll need for the cupcakes...
¼ cup soft real Irish butter- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup yoghurt – any berry fruit flavour
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup sweetcorn (fresh off the cob or frozen or canned work just as well)
- 1 ¼ cup plain flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup Cherries or Raspberries or Blackberries.. any berries you like but local seasonal fresh produce is always best but if you arent near a farmers market.. frozen berries work well and can be found all year around in your supermarket.
- Optional – dried fruit like raisins, cranberries or apricot
- Optional – ½ teaspoon cinnamon; or 3 teaspoons of linseed ( to make it extra healthy)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or vanilla essence
- Small tub of low fat cream cheese – you need about 2-3tablespoons
- 300g Icing Sugar – you may need less or more depending on how sweet you like it
- Sweetcorn or berries to decorate each cupcake
- Caster Sugar
If you need to convert our chosen measurement of cups to grams or oz or other measures try the Metric Kitchen website. We just use cups as measurement because we have those handy keychain cup sizes already lying about in the drawer!
Set your oven to 180 degrees celcius or 350F. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners.
(CrafTea tip - HarryAli deliver some fab party cupcake cases from their website www.harryali.com - just pick your kids party theme!)
With a wooden spoon mix up the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy. Sift in the flour with the salt, baking soda and baking powder. Beat the egg well so its frothy.
In a food blender or smoothie maker whiz the sweetcorn, yoghurt and berries.... this may seem a wierd mix, but its only when you who would have thought yoghurt & sweetcorn could be so good together!
Add everything together (the flour, the butter/sugar, egg and sweetcorn/yoghurt puree) and mix really well with a wooden spoon until everything is combined.
Spoon the mixture into the cases until they are 3/4 full and bake for about 15 minutes (or until you poke a cupcake with a toothpick and it comes out clean and the cupcakes are golden on top).
Now for the icing .... Mix the cream cheese with the vanilla. Sift in the icing sugar and taste as you add it... the more you add the sweeter the icing, the less you add the more savory it will be. You'll get to a point where the icing is moist and the more sugar you add the thicker the icing and more it will harden. I made mine thick for the cherry topped one below and creamier (by adding more cream cheese/less icing sugar) for the one topped with sweetcorn below). Be as creative as you want here!
Dip the sweetcorn kernel or berry into the caster sugar so its coated.
CrafTea tip – you can add a little of the berry juice to the sugar to get it all glittery looking or some yellow food colouring (v. small drop to ½ cup sugar into heatproof bowl, mix and leave to dry in warm place for a few hours or low oven for a few minutes)
To come are recipes for 'Glittered Raspberry Beetroot Cupcakes' & 'Carrot Courgette & Green Tea Raisin' Cupcakes !!!!!! watch this space or follow us on Twitter to make sure you see it first.
