Pineapple Zucchini Cupcakes

What could make a Pineapple Zucchini Cupcake even better (and better for you)?  Whole Wheat Flour added to the recipe makes these cupcakes at least halfway healthy.   With the bounty of the gardens ramping up, it's time to get those zucchini recipes honed in and ready to go, because you know, even if you don't have a garden of your own - a zuke or two will end up on your doorstep.   So here's a tasty way to use up some of that zucchini.

Pineapple Zucchini Cupcakes

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Adapted from recipe by Gina's Skinny Recipes

Ingredients:

3/4 c all-purpose flour

3/4 c Joseph's Grainery Hard Red Whole Wheat Flour

1 c sugar

1/2 c flaked coconut

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 pinch ginger

2 Tbs coconut oil

2 whole large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 c grated zucchini, unpeeled, squeezed well of all moisture

20 oz. can crushed pineapple in juice, drained well

For the Frosting:

8 oz cream cheese

1 c powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:  Preheat your oven to 350°.  In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, coconut, baking soda, salt, and spices; stir well.

In a medium bowl, combine oil, eggs, and vanilla; stir well. Add grated zucchini and pineapple; mix well. Fold wet ingredients with the dry ingredients.

Spoon batter into cupcake tin. Bake at 350° for about 23 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.

To prepare frosting, beat together cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spread frosting over the cupcakes once they are cooled.

Pina Colada Breakfast Cupcakes

Just in case you missed MaMa's guest post over at Kuzak's Closet, here's what she made for the special occasion.

Wishing you were somewhere tropical right about now, but a reality check reminds you that you've got a New Year's Resolution to stick to?

Pina Colada Breakfast Cupcakes:


1 1/2 c Joseph's Grainery Soft White Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp sea salt
2 eggs
1/2 c mashed banana
1/2 c oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c walnuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 c canned crushed pineapple, undrained
1/2 c shredded coconut

For the Cream Cheese Frosting (optional...obviously healthier if you left if off):
4 oz cream cheese
4 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1-3 Tbsp Milk (depending on desired consistency)

Directions:  Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Prepare a muffin tin by greasing it or lining with paper cups. In the bowl of your mixer, stir together the dry ingredients.

In a small bowl, mash together the egg and banana, then add the oil and the vanilla the combine.  Pour this wet mixture over the dry ingredients.

Add the walnuts, pineapple and coconut and stir until the flour is just moistened.

Fill the muffin tin cups about two-thirds full.  We like to use a 1/4 or 1/3 cup measure to help keep things tidy.

Bake for 20 minutes, until golden brown and an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

You can enjoy them as-is, for a wonderfully healthy start to your day...

...or, if you're like me and have an insatiable sweet tooth, and you aren't too strict about that New Year's Resolution, go ahead and soften the cream cheese and butter and then mix together with the powdered sugar, vanilla and milk until it's nice and smooth, then frost your breakfast cupcakes.  :)  You can even sprinkle a little shredded coconut on top.

Kiwi Blackberry Breakfast Cupcakes

A Kiwi Blackberry Breakfast Cupcake that is both sweet and healthy!

MaMa's done it!  She's successfully created a recipe that satisfies our sweet tooth and is still incredibly healthy for us - a Kiwi Blackberry Breakfast Cupcake.  Yes, a cupcake for breakfast.  I knew you'd smile.  I smiled too when MaMa said I could have a cupcake for breakfast.

You ask how a cupcake can be breakfast?  Well, the fine folks at Zespri Kiwifruit sent MaMa and I a box of beautiful kiwifruit to experiment with.  Packed in along with the kiwifruit were a few spifes (a combination spoon and knife - perfect for eating kiwifruit), a cute little stamp for me, and a fact sheet.  We had no idea how healthy the kiwifruit is!  Did you know that one serving of kiwifruit has 240% of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin C?  That's not to mention that it's a great source of fiber, potassium, antioxidants, folate, magnesium, lutein, zinc and vitamin E.

Add all that to the health benefits of freshly picked blackberries and whole wheat flour and you've got yourself one mighty breakfast cupcake!  We could (and will) write a whole post about the health benefits of baking and cooking with whole wheat flour, but we've already talked enough for now,so we'll save that for another day.  Onto the recipe for these delicious breakfast cupcakes...

Ingredients for Kiwi Blackberry Breakfast Cupcakes:

2 ripe kiwifruit

2 c milk

2 eggs

1/2 c applesauce

2 c oatmeal, run through a food processor for about 10 seconds

1/4 c Joseph's Grainery Cracked Wheat Breakfast Cereal

2 c Joseph's Grainery Soft White Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1 c sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

5 tsp baking powder

2 1/2 c blackberries

Directions:  Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Prepare a muffin tin with liners or cooking spray.  Prepare the kiwifruit by cutting off both ends and peeling the rest.  Place the peeled kiwifruit in the bowl of your mixer and add the milk.  On a medium-high speed, let the mixer do it's thing for 3 to 4 minutes to completely mash the kiwifruit.  Then add the eggs, applesauce, oatmeal and cracked wheat.  Let this mixture stand for 15 minutes until it is completely moist.  Slowly add the dry ingredients.  Let this mixture stand for an additional 10 minutes.  Fold in the blackberries.  Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin and bake for about 20 minutes.  Remove from the oven when a toothpick comes out of the center of the cupcake clean, let stand to cool before icing.

I think you could call them Kiwi Blackberry Muffins at this point.  :)

For the frosting:

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 c powdered sugar

2 Tbsp milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl and beat with a mixer until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Slowly add the confectioners sugar and milk.  Beat until smooth, then add the vanilla extract.

Ice the cupcakes and garnish with a blackberry and a half slice of kiwifruit.  Now that's a breakfast everyone will have a reason to celebrate about!

According to new FTC guidelines, we have to let you know that we're hoping to win a trip to New Zealand with this blog post.  You can enter to win a trip as well in the Great Kiwi Adventure.

Carrot Cupcakes with Whole Wheat Flour

Oh, boy!  Talk about deceptively delicious...getting a two year old to eat carrots can be a feat, just ask my MaMa.  She was pretty excited when I took a bite of these cupcakes and then smiled in approval.  She'd bought a bag of baby sized carrots for me to munch on awhile back and they weren't getting eaten.  I think they are just too much work to chew, so I dip them in ranch and then suck the dressing off.

MaMa wanted to use the carrots before they went bad, so she jumped right on this recipe once she found it.

Ingredients:

1/2 c brown sugar

1 stick butter, softened

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 c Joseph's Grainery Soft White Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1/2 c all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

2 carrots, shredded

1/2 c walnuts, chopped

1/2 c rainsins, soaked in water for 20 minutes

Directions:  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Beat together the brown sugar and butter.  Then add the eggs, vanilla, flours, powder, soda, salt and spices.  Once that is combined well, fold in the carrots, walnuts and raisins.  Fill the cups in a prepared muffin tin to about 2/3rd full each.  Bake for 12-14 minutes.

For the frosting:  combine 4 oz cream cheese, 1 tsp vanilla and 3/4 c powdered sugar and mix until smooth. 

Between DaDa and I, these were devoured in no time!  MaMa didn't mind because I was eating carrots, and I didn't mind because they tasted so good!  It was a win-win situation for us.

This recipe was adapted from one we found on The Village Cook.