Healthy vs Yummy
Recipe: Carrot Cupcakes
I recently heard a little boy in a pizza parlour sighing "I wish pizza was healthy". The boy loved eating pizza but I guess he was not allowed to have it on a regular basis because it wasn't considered healthy.
I have often heard myself thinking on the same lines. It feels like a cruel joke sometimes. A food is so delicious that you can go on eating it for the rest of your life. But the catch is that, if you do so, you might not be left with much of a life!
Though I am not a health-freak or anything, I sometimes try to find middle-ground in the battle between taste and health. One such experiment is my recipe for this post. I've been trying to make a cupcake that tastes wonderful and is also healthy. Carrots have been added to this cake for fibre and for the vitamins, minerals, other good-for-health stuff that are present in it. Thus making the cake healthier than their no-carrot-added counter-parts.
I know, I know, you must be thinking that there are already a 100 plus carrot cake recipes on the net. But this recipe is the result of my cooking experiments. And I can guarantee you that the end-result will be delightfully yummy.
CARROT CUPCAKES
Ingredients:
Makes 12 cupcakes
All-purpose flour - 1 cup
Carrots - 2 large ones grated
Baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Butter - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup powdered
Granulated Sugar - 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Eggs - 2 separated
Caramel syrup made with the 1/2 cup granulated sugar
Chopped Almonds - 1/2 cup (optional)
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Make the caramel syrup by putting 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 tbsp of water in a pan and place it over a medium flame. Do not stir it. When the sugar has caramelised and changed to a dark Amber colour, switch off the flame and pour 2 Tbsp of water in the hot pan (and run far away - esp if you dont want to get burnt by the hot caramel syrup)
Mix the Butter and powdered sugar and beat well till creamy. Add egg yolks and vanilla essence to this. Add the caramel syrup and mix well.
Mix the flour and baking powder together and slowly add it spoon-by-spoon to the butter-sugar-egg yolk mixture. Mix it well. At this stage the batter will look too dry for a cake. But when you add the remaining ingredients, it will be fine.
Add the grated carrots. And mix with a spatula. The moisture from the grated carrots will moisten the cake batter.
Beat egg whites in a separate bowl till it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold in the egg whites to this cake batter.
To make cupcakes, pour the batter into a cupcake tin lined with cupcake liners. Fill the batter only upto 3/4 of the cupcake liners. Top it with chopped almonds. Pop it into a hot oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
VERDICT: This turned out to be a fluffy, moist, melt-in-your-mouth cupcake. We enjoyed it to the last morsel. Its also an easy way to get your child to eat carrots.
I recently heard a little boy in a pizza parlour sighing "I wish pizza was healthy". The boy loved eating pizza but I guess he was not allowed to have it on a regular basis because it wasn't considered healthy.
I have often heard myself thinking on the same lines. It feels like a cruel joke sometimes. A food is so delicious that you can go on eating it for the rest of your life. But the catch is that, if you do so, you might not be left with much of a life!
Though I am not a health-freak or anything, I sometimes try to find middle-ground in the battle between taste and health. One such experiment is my recipe for this post. I've been trying to make a cupcake that tastes wonderful and is also healthy. Carrots have been added to this cake for fibre and for the vitamins, minerals, other good-for-health stuff that are present in it. Thus making the cake healthier than their no-carrot-added counter-parts.
I know, I know, you must be thinking that there are already a 100 plus carrot cake recipes on the net. But this recipe is the result of my cooking experiments. And I can guarantee you that the end-result will be delightfully yummy.
CARROT CUPCAKES
Ingredients:
Makes 12 cupcakes
All-purpose flour - 1 cup
Carrots - 2 large ones grated
Baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Butter - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup powdered
Granulated Sugar - 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Eggs - 2 separated
Caramel syrup made with the 1/2 cup granulated sugar
Chopped Almonds - 1/2 cup (optional)
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Make the caramel syrup by putting 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 tbsp of water in a pan and place it over a medium flame. Do not stir it. When the sugar has caramelised and changed to a dark Amber colour, switch off the flame and pour 2 Tbsp of water in the hot pan (and run far away - esp if you dont want to get burnt by the hot caramel syrup)
Mix the Butter and powdered sugar and beat well till creamy. Add egg yolks and vanilla essence to this. Add the caramel syrup and mix well.
Mix the flour and baking powder together and slowly add it spoon-by-spoon to the butter-sugar-egg yolk mixture. Mix it well. At this stage the batter will look too dry for a cake. But when you add the remaining ingredients, it will be fine.
Add the grated carrots. And mix with a spatula. The moisture from the grated carrots will moisten the cake batter.
Beat egg whites in a separate bowl till it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold in the egg whites to this cake batter.
To make cupcakes, pour the batter into a cupcake tin lined with cupcake liners. Fill the batter only upto 3/4 of the cupcake liners. Top it with chopped almonds. Pop it into a hot oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
VERDICT: This turned out to be a fluffy, moist, melt-in-your-mouth cupcake. We enjoyed it to the last morsel. Its also an easy way to get your child to eat carrots.
Sarah, forget about the nutritional value of this cupcake, it looks absolutely delicious !! I am going to ask my mum to try this out.
ReplyDeleteThanks Thushar!! Let me know how it turned out.
ReplyDeleteit looks sinfully delicious. sarah buddy, now that I am in bangalore, when are you inviting me home?!
ReplyDeleteThanks Anoop... You and Haveena should drop in sometime..
ReplyDeleteIts 12 Noon and i happened to open your blog and my hunger tripled...
ReplyDeletePizza and this Looks super...
This looks so so yum yum... Hope we get to taste this when we come there
ReplyDeleteAh, I have eaten ur cupcakes.. they are sooo yummy ! :) Slurp !!
ReplyDelete@Chethan: yeah i am also really hungry by the time it is 12 noon. I miss Vidya's snacks during this time
ReplyDelete@Swapna: Sure.. but you are an expert too in cake baking
@Vidya: Thanks.. now that u have time on your hands, do try them.
You know what.. I am planning to prepare this next week :) Will let you know how it comes out.. Whats the difference between baking soda and baking powder ? Can I use either of them ?
ReplyDeleteAnd in future, can you take snaps of every (major)step in the procedure? Will be helpful for beginners like me :)
ReplyDelete@Vidya: Baking soda is Sodium Bicarbonate and Baking powder is Sodium Bicarbonate + Cream of Tartar. I would suggest not to interchange them and to follow the recipe the letter.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I do want to take pictures of each major step... working towards it... Trying to improve my photography skills for that and also the lighting in the kitchen.
@Vidya: If this is your first attempt at cake, then the other recipe titled "Cakes and Bowls" is a much simpler one.
ReplyDeleteAlso if you planning to bake a full cake instead of cupcakes, then you will have to increase the baking time to at least 40 min.
Yeah, but I like this one better, I am trying to prepare cup cakes. I need to first buy these ingredients :)
ReplyDelete@Vidya: ok then... have fun... do be careful while making the caramel syrup - Hot caramel spews and sputters...
ReplyDeletelooks very inviting Sarah!
ReplyDeletevisit my blog to pick your award
Appu, I made it. It came out so well and it tastes awesome. I usually don't like the caramel taste but loved this cake.
ReplyDeleteTo improve our health diet is important. From click here if we will eat yummy dishes then we can see difference in our body. We can be fit by eating tasty dishes. We can use healthy ingredients to make different dishes.
ReplyDelete