Roar.
My husband, the monster:
Did you know I was once married to Frankenstein? It’s true! Long before Bella Swan made it fashionable to marry a ghoul, Frankie and I had a one-night stand. I dressed up as the Bride of Frankenstein for Halloween and created a stuffed monster “husband” to carry around all night.
In case you’re curious, here’s a photo of us.
Although we didn’t stay married long (irreconcilable differences), I think Frankenstein would approve of the following mint-chocolate cupcake recipe. Whole-grain, and lower in fat and sugar, these are much healthier than your average cupcakes. And yet, they taste just as delicious.
As I said in yesterday’s post, these cupcakes were made for a good friend’s kindergarten class. I so wanted to throw some spinach in them, to see how they’d turn out. But I didn’t have enough time to make a second batch if the experiment failed.
If anyone is feeling adventurous, please do try adding spinach… and let me know how it goes!!
Monster Mint-Chocolate Cupcakes
(Makes 12 cupcakes)
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder (regular or dutch)
- 1 cup flour (I used white-whole-wheat. You can use all-purpose, spelt, or even ww pastry.)
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup sugar or evaporated cane juice
- 1 and 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 and 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tsp pure peppermint extract (or 1/2 tsp, if you only want a very-slight mint taste)
- 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt of choice (such as SoDelicious)
- 1/4 cup applesauce
- 3 tbsp oil (coconut or veg or canola oil)
- optional: add a few handfuls chocolate chips to the batter!
- 1/2 cup milk of choice
Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients, then add wet. Don’t overmix. Pour into cupcake liners or tins, and bake for 18-20 minutes. (Mine took 19 minutes.) Nutrition Facts per cupcake: Each cupcake will have around 130 calories and three grams of fat, depending on what yogurt you use.
Cupcakes in the photos are topped with this recipe: Mint Chocolate Chip Frosting.
For a Mint-Chocolate Parfait:
Try crumbling this over Mint-Chocolate-Chip Ice Milk.
Or skip the parfait idea and just cover these babies in devilishly-delicious green frosting. With chocolate chips. Don’t forget the chocolate chips.
Question of the Day:
Do you remember any of your childhood Halloween costumes?
Some of mine: a Martian beauty queen, devil in a blue dress, purple-people-eater, monster chef, dust bunny (French maid with bunny ears), sand witch (sandwich), and “Indecisive” (where I wore a little bit of everything I could find. That one was really fun). I always hope that one of my friends will throw a party, so I have an excuse to still dress up even though I’m obviously way too old for trick-or-treating. I still have no idea what I’m going to wear to this year’s Halloween party.
Mmmm…Hello, Cupcake!
and Hi, Katie! I just discovered your blog a couple of weeks ago (Thank you, Pinterest) and have already tried your Cookie Dough dip. I was pretty sure I’d end up tossing the dip in the garbage — but it was all I could do not to eat the whole bowl in one sitting. I’m on a nothing-white diet at the moment, so I used Splenda and omitted the chocolate chips — still delicious! As a final test, I let my kids try it and they had no idea it wasn’t real cookie dough. Bravo!
I’m trying the blondies next, then I’ll tackle the cupcakes 🙂
Costumes…I only remember one as a kid (Tootsie Roll), but Halloween is my daughter’s (Katie, too) favorite holiday, so we have a good stock of costumes: chef, hot dog, taco (she wants to be a chef, so you see a theme here), Tulane cheerleader (when she was 2!), this year she’ll be a gorilla. My husband and I have been Bacon and Eggs, Batman and Wonderwoman, Vikings…so fun.
Thanks for your uplifting posts and for your delicious recipes!
Aww, that makes me SO happy!
And your daughter has the best name 😉
Kate,
Where do you find your coconut extract? We have a Sprouts here, kind of like a smaller version of Whole Foods, and they do not carry it. Would a health store like GNC or Vitamin Shoppe carry it?
Also, for those extremely tasty looking chocolate mint cupcakes, you suggested adding spinach. How much? In what form (raw, frozen) and whole, chopped, or pureed? And where in the recipe, with the wet ingredients, at the end before baking.. etc..?
Oddly enough, I actually found it at Target! (It’s Archer Farms brand.)
I can’t vouch for the spinach idea, but if I had tried it, I probably would’ve tried frozen, thawed spinach… maybe pureed it with the yogurt? I’m not sure what I would’ve done, because I never got the chance to experiment.
Im sooo glad I found this website!!! Its the first website that has desserts that actualy are healthy and have no sugar without using the fake stuff or Splenda!!! And usually I hate dates and those kinda things but this totally changes my perspective. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT 😀
Awww thank you!!! 🙂
Hi Katie,
Sorry if this question has already been asked but, do you think tahini would work in place of the nut butter for the frosting? Or do you this that would taste odd? I know I could use chocolate butter instead but would rather keep the green colour of the frosting visible (they are for my children).
The other thing I was thinking of using is coconut butter. What do you think? All and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 🙂
Thanks,
Nina
Personally, I don’t like the taste of tahini, so I’m biased against it! But coconut butter would be AWESOME!
Ha, so pleased you said that about the coconut butter! That’s what I used. I popped them in the fridge and the choc chips set into the frosting. The frosting was hard but not frighteningly so. We had some for afternoon tea today (bearing in mind it’s 8pm Halloween night, here in Canberra, Australia) and they were devine. 🙂
Thank you Katie.
These look incredible. Chocolate mint is my favourite chocolate flavour, and mint chocolate chip used to be my favourite ice cream. The frosting is so clever, too! I might just have to make these some time 🙂
how did you achieve that mint color for the frosting? I used green food coloring, but it isn’t as bright as yours
I used Wilton green food coloring. It comes in a tiny container and is very powerful. (I find it at Michaels.)
Hi Katie 🙂 Must we use canola oil and yogurt? and i was wondering if Lactaid was okay to use because i don’t have almond milk! 🙁 But thanks for this recipe it looks sooo delicious! You’re brilliant!! 😀
You can use any milk you have on hand :).
You can sub the canola for veg oil or even coconut oil!
These are in the oven now! I doubled the recipe and they turned out great. I can’t stop eating the dough for the second batch! LOVE your site.
Ok, so these cupcakes came out delicious. However, my frosting (while it tasted good) looked like a pile of rotten guacamole. How the heck did you get the coloring to be so pretty??
What food coloring did you use? And what nut butter? I used wilton brand, and I only needed a few drops!
It was McCormick green food coloring which comes out way dark. I also tested it in the mint chocolate chip ice cream…i have an obsession with mint chocolate. I used sunflower seed butter which is light, so I’m not sure if that would make a huge difference. I’ll definitely get the Wilton brand. Thanks a bunch! This is my new favorite website of all time 🙂
Aw thanks, Kara!
I like Wilton because you can get all sorts of different color shades. Plus you only need a drop or two!
Sounds good to me!
P.S. my mom said you should make a book. lol