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Vanilla Mini-Cupcakes with Tangy Chocolate Glaze

June 22, 2017 By Jessica Braider 2 Comments

Vanilla Mini-Cupcakes with Tangy Chocolate Glaze

In honor of The Recipe Redux turning 6, we were challenged this month to come up with a small bite dessert. So fun! And a very welcome excuse to bake some cake!

When I first started pondering what to make, the dessert that popped into my mind was the mini-cupcakes at Whole Foods. I have a weak spot for them. I love that they are small enough that I can happily have two (or, let’s be honest, often three) and that they give me a nice hit of chocolate without being too much. So I thought I would try and come up with a homemade version.

If you have been following me for a while, you have probably caught onto the fact that I am a big fan of using yogurt in baking. I like it for three reasons: 1) like buttermilk, it makes things fluffier, 2) unlike buttermilk, I almost always have it in the house, and 3) it adds some protein to whatever I am baking. My love for using yogurt in cakes was firmly solidified a couple of months ago when I came across the yogurt cake recipe on the Kitchn. No beating or stiffening of eggs, only one bowl used, and yet out comes a fluffy, delicious cake—it is a lazy cook’s dream cake recipe! So I adapted it a little to make it a smidge healthier by including some spelt flour and cutting down on the sugar and the outcome was outstanding! (Note: I have found that using whole grain flours, like whole wheat or spelt, in cakes works better in cupcakes than it does in full-sized cakes, it just doesn’t rise quite enough as a big cake because the flours are denser…)

For the chocolate glaze, I also wanted the tangy-ness of yogurt to enliven the flavor and bulk up the nutrition, even if just by a little bit. So I tweaked a Cabot recipe by decreasing the sugar (why does every frosting recipe call for so much sugar?!). All I can say is that if I could eat these cupcakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I totally would. And, in fact, I just might have them for breakfast tomorrow…

Happy Birthday, The Recipe Redux!

5.0 from 1 reviews
Vanilla Mini-Cupcakes with Tangy Chocolate Glaze
 
Save Print
Prep time
20 mins
Cook time
15 mins
Total time
35 mins
 
Cupcake recipe adapted from: The Kitchn Yogurt Cake Glaze recipe adapted from: Cabot Chocolate Layer Cake
Author: Jessica Braider
Recipe type: Dessert
Serves: 48
Ingredients
  • For the cupcakes:
  • 1 ½ cups whole milk plain yogurt
  • ⅔ cups extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
  • 1 cup spelt flour (or white whole wheat flour)
  • 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ¾ teaspoons baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • pinch freshly ground nutmeg
  • For the glaze:
  • ¼ cup plain whole milk yogurt
  • ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 ¼ cups confectioner’s sugar
Instructions
  1. To make the cake:
  2. Preheat the oven to 350 and line two mini-cupcake pans with liners.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, olive oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.
  4. Add the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg and stir until there are no lumps.
  5. Distribute the batter amongst your muffin cups and bake for 15 minutes. Place them on a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely before glazing them.
  6. To make the glaze:
  7. Combine the yogurt, cocoa powder and vanilla in a large bowl.
  8. Using an electric mixer, slowly beat in the confectioner’s sugar until there are no lumps.
  9. Carefully dip the top of each cupcake into the glaze, turn onto its side, and spin gently to let any drops fall off, then place them on a tray. Place the tray into the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes to let the glaze firm up a bit.
3.5.3226

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Filed Under: Baked Goods, Dessert Tagged With: birthday, chocolate, cupcakes, dessert, spelt, the recipe redux, yogurt

Cranberry Yogurt Cake with Maple Glaze: A Simple Dessert for the Holiday Season

November 21, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

Cranberry Yogurt Cake with Maple Glaze: A Simple Dessert for the Holiday Season

In my foodie family there are many holiday dishes that are considered sacred: Eggs Benedict on Christmas morning, my mom’s buttery fresh spinach, my brother’s carefully timed and rotated stuffed turkey, my mom’s poached pears with chestnut puree, and my mashed potatoes. Most of these dishes are not only a little bit richer than I would usually make, but they are also very labor intensive, and that’s how we like it. We love spending hours in the kitchen together, usually with bouncing fun music playing, creating these rich and delicious meals.

Other than my mom’s poached pears, however, there are few dessert recipes that are considered essential (and even that one isn’t made every year). So when The Recipe Redux announced the challenge for this month: “The holiday baking season is upon us. Time to pull out all the stops. Show us the healthy holiday dessert you will be sharing with family and friends this season.” I was excited to see what I could come up with. I wanted to create a recipe that would not only have some redeemable nutritional aspects to it, but that would also be a simple one that anyone could do. My goal of simplicity was a bit selfish because I hoped that in making one that was easy, perhaps I could entice the boys to start making it with me and that over time it could become their special recipe to contribute to future holiday meals….

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Filed Under: Baked Goods, Dessert Tagged With: cake, cranberry, holidays, recipe redux, yogurt

4 Ways to Make Trying Something New a Success (with Kids or Yourself)

March 10, 2016 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

4 Ways to Make Trying Something New a Success (with Kids or Yourself)

Each Monday I teach a cooking class to a group of first through fourth graders at a local school. The focus of the class is on cooking healthy snacks and goodies, but it is also a way for me to start to teach them some fundamental cooking skills and concepts. This week I wanted to work with them on the idea of building flavor. So we started with a common ingredient, yogurt, and then made two sauces from it, one that was savory (tzatziki) and one that was sweet (honey, cinnamon, and vanilla).

Many (most) of the students were very skeptical about either one or both of the sauces and a few declared that it was going to be disgusting and that they wouldn’t eat them. I calmly reminded the students to please choose their words carefully (we have a rule in the class, “don’t yuck someone else’s yum”) and I asked that everyone try at least a tiny bit of each, even if it was just a lick. Some were nervous, but everyone agreed. So when it came time to try the two sauces I went around and put a tiny bit on each kid’s plate (less than 1/8 of a teaspoon). They had apples, carrots, and pretzels to dip in the sauces. And this is where some really cool things happened….

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Filed Under: Cooking with Kids, Feeding Kids, Picky Eaters, Tips and Tricks Tagged With: dips, Easy, healthy, kids, sauces, snacks, yogurt

1-Minute Dessert: Sweet Yogurt Dip

December 9, 2013 By Jessica Braider Leave a Comment

1-Minute Dessert: Sweet Yogurt Dip

This recipe starts with a story.  One day over the summer I desperately needed to go to the grocery store and I needed to do a real shop, not just pick a few things up, because our pantry was incredibly bare. Unfortunately, though, school was out and camps had not started yet, which meant I had two boys with me who had no interest in going grocery shopping.  What’s a mom to do? Bribe. So I did. I bribed them with a treat each if they would help me out and not beg and plead for each thing that caught their interest. They agreed. So in we went.

We had made it through the produce section and were entering the bulk foods when my little one cried out, “YOGURT PRETZELS!!” And then my older one cried out, “YOGURT PRETZELS!!” These two kids could not be more different in their taste in food- my younger loves all things protein (read: meat) and my older is a vegetable addict- so this was a rare moment. I was about to say, “Great! Yogurt pretzels can be your treat!” When a little voice inside my head said, “But what is actually in yogurt pretzels?” I had looked it up before and deep down I knew the answer: Not yogurt. Yogurt pretzels do have a tiny, tiny bit of dehydrated yogurt in them, but mostly the coating is confectioner’s sugar. So really what they were asking for was candy and I wasn’t a big fan of that idea. But inspiration struck and I said, “what if we made our OWN yogurt pretzels?!” Luckily they loved the idea….

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Filed Under: Dessert, Feeding Kids, Picky Eaters, Snacks Tagged With: cinnamon, Easy, fruit, healthy, honey, pretzels, vanilla, yogurt

Spelt Sweet Potato Muffins

November 19, 2013 By Jessica Braider 2 Comments

Spelt Sweet Potato Muffins

I don’t know about at your house, but things at our house have been crazy busy! One way you can tell is that our freezer has gotten very, very empty. How is that a sign? Well, it means I have been depending heavily on my leftovers stockpile for dinners, as well as my quick breakfasts stash.

So today I am replenishing my stores a bit. I made a big trip to the grocery store (first trip since our CSA ended for the season, such a hard transition) and have been whipping up some goodies. One of which is a new favorite recipe in our house: Spelt Sweet Potato Muffins.

…

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Filed Under: Breakfast, Cooking with Kids, Feeding Kids, Lunch Box Food, Picky Eaters, Snacks Tagged With: oats, spelt, sweet potato, Vegetables, walnuts, yogurt

Jessica Braider

Hi! I'm Jessica. I love delicious food that is simple and easy. As a busy mom, I am always on the lookout for ways to make life easier and tastier! Read More…

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