Healthy Hostess Cupcakes!
Hostess cupcakes iced with Hot Chocolate Butter.
Along with yesterday’s Healthy Cookie Dough Dip, I brought these cupcakes to Sunday’s pirate party.
For a while now, I’d been looking for an excuse to try making a healthier version of the popular creme-filled cupcakes. So when I discovered I could stretch the “yo ho/ ho ho” pun and pass these off as pirate-themed, I knew they had to be made. Unlike Hostess’ cupcakes, mine are whole-grain, low in fat and calories, and free of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats.
But seriously, people will eat them up!!
Healthy Hostess Cupcakes
Inspired by My Favorite Chocolate Cupcakes
- 1 cup spelt, white, or Bob’s gf flour
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp plus 1/8 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar or xylitol
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 and 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 and 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt of choice, such as SoDelicious
- 1/4 cup applesauce
- 3 tbsp oil
- 1/2 cup milk of choice
- marshmallow fluff – I use my Vegan Marshmallow Fluff
Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients, then add wet – excluding marshmallow fluff. Don’t overmix. Pour into cupcake tins, and bake for 15-20 minutes. Allow cupcakes to cool, then cut or poke holes in the tops and scoop in the cream. Re-cover the tops. (Recipe continues below.)
Frost cupcakes with warmed Hot Chocolate Butter or with melted chocolate chips. Then put the cakes in the fridge for the frosting to harden. Once hard, you can use an icing writer for the tiny squiggles if you wish. Yes, I know the icing isn’t healthy. But it’s only like a 1/8 tsp, so I still feel justified in calling these cupcakes healthy.
An alternative to the creme:
Try stuffing them with Healthy Cookie Dough Dip.
Or, you could imitate some of the people at the party and dunk these cupcakes into the cookie dough dip. Sugar on top of sugar. So much for this being a healthy dessert blog!
These look even better than the pre-packed version! I would devour those immediately 🙂
WHHY ARE YOU SO COOL
you are SO CREATIVE! like probably the most creative girl i have ever ‘met’
ONE DAY!
These look awesome! Is there an easy substitute for the yogurt ?
What kind of substitute do you mean? (In other words, do you want to stay away from the yogurt because it has a particular ingredient you can’t have, like soy or coconut? Or can you just not find nondairy yogurt?)
I do not eat soy. I didn’t even know there was a coconut yogurt that didn’t have dairy or soy?
We unfortunately do not have a wide variety of items in the local shop so it’s challenging to find acceptable substitutes. Was wondering if you added the yogurt for the moistness factor or as a thickening agent or for flavor, etc etc…
The SoDelicious ones don’t have any soy :).
But if you can’t find them… I’m really not sure. More applesauce might be an option, but I can’t say I’ve tried it so I can’t guarantee it would work. I *think* it would work, though. If you try it, let me know how it turns out!
I have some alternatives for you:
1) Substiture with vegan sourcream (not sure if it is tofu-free).
2) Add vinegar to equal amount of milk (as yogurt), let it curdle for sometime and then use in the recipe.
3) This is a far-fetched alternative, but anyway: You could order Yogurt Cultures from Amazon and make your own yogurt in your choice of milk 🙂
I would not advise using more applesauce, for it would leave an after-taste not many prefer.
Thanks a bunch for the info you guys! 🙂
Love these. Okay, I wouldn’t eat them myself, but LOVE that you can veganize the “classics”.
A place by us had they veganized, and they were a big hit!
to answer your question…I would LOVE a cupcake :-)!!! Your amazing katie!!
OMG! Anything iced and stuffed with Ricemellow Creme is alright by me!
Haha I carried two tubs back with me from NYC… because dumb old TX hasn’t gotten its act together yet to sell it!
yummy- those look like the real thing! 😀
They look just like the real thing and I bet they taste way better!
What would happen if the cornstarch were left out?
They might not hold together as well… but really, I don’t know. I based this recipe off of my “go-to” chocolate cupcake recipe, and as I say in that post, those are based off of a vanilla recipe from a cookbook. The cookbook author (genius Isa Chandra Moskowitz) called for cornstarch, so I trusted her ;).
awww these are so cute! You should make healthy twinkies! And zebra cakes. I used to loveee zebra cakes. Do you usually make one sweet version, and one non-sweet version for you to try? Or do you just try the sweet version?
Often, I’ll make a whole recipe (dry ingredients) and then divide it into 1/2s or 1/4ths and do different things to each 1/4. For this one, though, I just made them all the same.
Oh man… I immediately got out my notebook to add this to my post competition recipes to try, and I surprised myself with how ferociously I wrote it. My handwriting has never been so big and intense. Need chocolate much? Yes, I think I do! 🙂
Oh my gosh- these look amazing!! I’ve actually never had a real Hostess cupcake but these look like something I def want to try! And let’s get serious… I ALWAYS want a cupcake! I used to be cupcake obsessed and my friends even bought me a Juicy Couture cupcake necklace for my bday one year!
Stunning photography and such a creatively adapted recipe! I’ll bake these as a surprise for my mum, Hostess cupcakes were her childhood favourite.
Do you think that your ‘healthy whipped cream’ recipe would work in place of the Ricemallow as we don’t get it over here?
I think it would!! If you try it, let me know how it turns out! 🙂
I’ve never had a real Hostess but I’d bet these taste a million times better! They look divine!
They look perfectly “cloned”!! Love the little swirl design on top. Great job! Yummy 😀
How to talk to pirets..hmm..good question!! Never thought about it but may be sign language will be the best way to talk to..lol 🙂 BTW I will not mind grabbing one of these amazing cupcakes 🙂