Low fat Vanilla Yoghurt Cupcakes

I was sorting out my photos the other day when I saw this picture and realised that I'd forgotten to post this which I had intended to. I mentioned in my previous post that I'm in search for some good basic vanilla cupcake/muffin recipes. Having tried a few recipes, I find that different recipes can come in handy depending on the occasion I am baking it for, or the preference of the recipients, since most of the time, I don't bake solely for myself. Sometimes I like the richer, more buttery ones while at times I may just go for a lighter version and will go well with chocolate chips or nuts (previous post). Thus, it's good to have a few recipes suited to different taste buds. Some recipes called for milk, some buttermilk, yoghurt, sour cream...the list goes on. I have not tried out all but they do differ in taste and texture. I'll have to test one using sour cream one day.

This one that I am blogging about here uses yoghurt and lesser amount of butter. You can't really consider it's a healthier version as it still contains about 8g of butter fat per cupcake but as compared to most butter cupcakes, the content is considerably lesser. I like how the cake turned out soft, fluffy, with just the right amount of richness; neither too rich nor too light and dry. The texture is somewhere between a butter cake and a sponge cake, if you can see from the interior shots, though it was not taken that well. The top also rised nicely, with no obvious cracks. This one below is actually a mini sized cupcake. Doesn't it look cute? :P


If you had been blog hopping often, I believe the source of recipe ain't unfamiliar to you. It's from Alice Medrich's low fat chocolate marble cake recipe. I simply omitted the chocolate portion, and used only the yoghurt batter. The original chocolate marble cake recipe is a good one, I can assure. If you are interested, you may go to here.

Meanwhile, you may use this as a base for any basic vanilla cupcake recipe! I modified the recipe slightly though, as I halved the recipe and reduced the amount of sugar.

Ingredients:

1 cup cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 whole egg
3 tbsp unsalted butter (approx 45 g)
1/2 cup nonfat plain yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Have all ingredients at room temperature. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Use a wire whisk to combine all dry ingredients. Set aside.
3. Whisk whole egg and set aside.
4. Cut butter into pieces, beat for about 1 minute to soften. Gradually add remaining sugar and beat at high speed for about 3 minutes.
5. Dribble eggs in slowly, about 1 tbsp at a time, beating constantly for 2 minutes.
6. On medium-high speed, beat in half of the yoghurt. On low speed, beat in half of the flour;
7. On high speed, beat in the rest of the yoghurt and vanilla.
8. On low speed, beat in remaining flour.
9. Scoop into lined muffin tins.
10. Bake for about 15-20 minutes and a tester inserted comes out clean.

Recipe Source: Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Dessert by Alice Medrich

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The muffin is actually made of egg white, flour and sugar only. It was intially intended to be baked as almond crisps. But somehow I lost court of the number of leftover egg whites I had, after all the CNY baking, which was probably the reason why I could not get my almond crisp correct. Thus, in order not to waste the remaining batter, I poured it into muffins liners and tada..! some simple muffins were born! LOL. The texture isn't that fabulous, but it ain't too bad either. Non fat, had the texture of a 'Huat Gao', and crunchy sliced almonds on top.

So, don't attempt to throw any unpromising raw materials; you'll never know what surprises it could turn into! ;)