My dad is a huge fan of cream-based desserts. He loves all of those creamy fattening desserts such as eclairs, but is a sucker for Wuzetka, which is a Polish cake that has chocolate cake layers on top and bottom and in the middle it’s a very thick cream. He always buys that cake when they go grocery shopping in Polish deli stores. My mom hatess it. The cake is so fattening and it doesn’t really even taste all that good when it’s made in a store anyway. The way we remember it, from Poland, was much much better. Especially when it’s homemade.
Well I totally went off track. I’m not even making this cake for Father’s day. I don’t think my culinary experience is high enough to tackle this just yet. One day though, I might. A healthier version, of course. So for today, the cupcakes I made (of course it’s cupcakes, of course, haha) were inspired by Wuzetka.
It’s a deep chocolate cupcake with a homemade vanilla pudding filling and a chocolate frosting. While this dessert looks and tastes completely sinful, it really isn’t! Healthy chocolate frosting tastes just as good as the butter laden one, if not better, and it definitely makes you feel better about eating it guitlessly. The delicious creamy pudding filling is a wonderful contrast to the deep chocolatey cupcake. The outcome is simply wonderful.
Not one person could tell this cupcake had such incredible stats. A cupcake that has 4g of sugar? And only 120 calories for such an amazingly sinful-tasting treat! How’s that for “indulge without the bulge”?!
Now this is my take on a cream dessert – make cupcakes, and make them healthy 🙂
Homemade Vanilla Pudding (low fat/no sugar added)
- 2 cups + 1/4 cup lowfat milk (divided)
- 3/4 tsp vanilla NuNaturals stevia
- pinch of salt
- 3 Tbsp potato starch
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Put 2 cups milk, stevia, and salt in a medium saucepan on a low-medium heat and stir consistently. After it’s been cooking for a while… Put the remaining milk along with water in a glass or small bowl and add potato starch, mix well and set aside. Once the milk and stevia mixture starts to boil, stir the mixture in a glass again so it’s not all thick, and add it to the boiling milk making sure you start stirring it right away and consistently. The mixture will begin to thicken. Stir it until the mixture is thick of the pudding consistency and turn off heat and put it aside for 3 minutes to let it cool. Then stir in the vanilla extract. Cover to avoid pudding forming a skin on top. Set aside, in fridge or counter, and make your cupcakes.
Note: There will be a lot of pudding left over. If you only want to make the pudding especially for the cupcakes, I’d recommend cutting the recipe by third or even fourth.
Nutritional facts per recipe: 495 calories, 28 g sugar, 20g protein
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Healthy Chocolate Frosting (low fat/no sugar added)
- 2/3 cup plain lowfat yogurt (I used Mountain High Yoghurt)
- 12 drops chocolate stevia
- heaping 1/3 cup cocoa powder
Whisk all of the ingredients together vigorously until it thickens up nicely. Stick in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to help thicken it up a bit more. Frost the cupcakes. Store in fridge.
Nutritional facts per recipe: ~150 calories, 7.3g protein, 8.7g sugar
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Chocolate Cupcakes (yield 11) (low fat/low sugar)
Adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie.
- 3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 packets NuNaturals stevia
- scant 1/3 cup turbinado
- 1 Tbsp instant coffee granules
- 1 and 1/2 Tbsp potato starch
- 1/2 cup plain lowfat yogurt (I used Mountain High Yoghurt)
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 3 Tbsp canola oil
- 1/2 cup lowfat milk
- 1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350F. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the wet. Add wet to dry and mix, making sure not to overmix though. Divide between 11 lined and sprayed cupcake liners in a cupcake tin. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Let cool before poking holes in the middle with an apple corer or a knife, make sure you only go 3/4 of the way (don’t poke all the way through the cupcake). Put pudding in the middle and cover with some of the cake part. Frost it using the healthy chocolate frosting on top. Store in the fridge. Enjoy!
Nutritional facts: ~100 calories, 2.5g sugar, 3.1g protein per (cup)cake
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Total per frosted and filled cupcake: ~120 calories, 4g sugar, 4.3g protein
Now go ahead and indulge without any guilt. And go ahead, feed them to your dad (or whoever) and I bet they won’t be able to tell how healthy these are. Enjoy!
Kammie wants to know:
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If you could have any filling in a cupcake, what filling would you get?
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Do you care about calories in desserts?
Let me know in the comments below!
