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!
I love the idea of stuffing them with cookie dough dip! That is the ultimate in decadence. I was never a fan of the over processed Twinkies or Hostess Cupcakes, but I will give these a try. 🙂
Is there anything you can substitute for the vanilla yogurt?
Maybe coconut cream, but I haven’t tried it.
Hi
Thanks so much for all these receipes…esp. for me being new to healthy gluten-free eating!!!
Have a question…if i replace any gluten-free flours for ur recipes, do i really have to use xyanthum gum, guar gum or pre-starch?
I really dont want to have to use these as far as possible, but still get awesum results.
I dont mind using baking powder and baking soda…
Also, for cakes, muffins, doughnuts and biscuits…what flours would you reccommend?
Chickpea flour has an awful after-taste!!!
Any help/advice from other gluten-free bakers would alo be much appreciated:)!!!!
Please do an article on this…
If I’ve listed a gluten-free flour as an option, and if I haven’t called for xantham/guar gums in the recipe, then YES you can use that option exactly as written :).
It doesn’t always work out, but I have good luck in many recipes with gf all-purpose mixes such as Bob’s Red Mill or Arrowhead Mills.
I just made these, and my cake turned out fantastic. They only had marshmallow cream at my grocery store, and it was a little thick but good. My problem was with the icing or hot chocolate butter. I microwaved the virgin coconut oil, stirred in the agave, then the cocoa powder and stir stir stirred. But then my icing got lumpy and granulated. Did I stir too much? What happened?
The oil might have gotten hard. Next time if that happens, just microwave or gently heat just a few seconds (like 10) and it should turn to liquid again.
Oh my gosh, I absolutely love these cupcakes. I just popped ’em out of the oven and frosted them & I tried one.. absolutely delicious! I am so glad you had this recipe! I urge anyone to try this. 🙂
The best way to fill cupcakes is to use a decorators bag and the long round tip just for this purpose. Push it in to the top of the cake and squeeze in the filling. Frost over the hole.
You are way better off going to a good bakery and buying a cupcake with normal cupcake ingredients than eating a cupcake with a multitude of unhealthy ingredients, do I daresay a dangerous concoction, including cornstarch, one of the worst things you can ever eat.
Now where do I find organic cornstarch?! :-/
I’m allergic to dairy so what can I substitute for the vanilla yogurt?
Katie’s blog is vegan and there are no dairy products used. Plus, you can find a number of vegan yogurts out there: So Delicious, Wholesoy, Almond Dream, etc.
Did I miss nutrition info for the hostess cupcake?
Thanks
Hi, there!
Love your recipe. I also think you should be a little clearer on how you word you ingredients. As for Sugar: there is reg white sugar (non vegan), or Vegan sugar. It’s really important to let others know the difference between the two.
Here is some info if you don’t already know.
http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2007issue4/2007_issue4_sugar.php
Thanks so much!
Deana
These look delicious, but why in the world are these on the Huffington Post “19 Vegan Cupcake Recipes…” list?!?! They have yogurt and milk in them!
Katie’s blog is vegan and her milk and yogurt ingredients are non-dairy.
For a sugar-free version, blend a cup of sweet dark raisins, like Sultan, with the applesauce instead of adding sugar. If you blend the raisins into a paste, the cupcakes will not taste like raisins, nor will they have pieces of raisin breaking the texture of the cake. Just moist, cakey, sweet… with no added sugar.
First, I just want to say, these look really good! But, I don’t see where it says how many this recipe makes. I currently only have one muffin pan that makes 8 regular sized muffins.
Makes 10
If I wanted to make these cup cakes non-dairy, what can be used instead of the 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt? Thanks.
It’s a vegan blog, so all recipes are vegan. You can use any nondairy yogurt such as So Delicious or Silk.
It would have been so nice to have known about how many cupcakes this recipe would make. If I had known I could have oiled the correct amount of tinfoil cupcake liners. And, how come I don’t see nutritional information.