Merrytrickortreatandbethankful Day Cupcakes

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The Christmas decorations are out!  It's that time a year again when everyone starts whining about the stores having all their Christmas stuff out already when it is not even time for Halloween, let alone Thanksgiving, yet.  Personally, I love Christmas and wish we could celebrate all year round.  If it wasn't for our society's taboo of listening to Christmas music in August already, I would have had it blaring a long time ago.  It just makes me so happy!

 

To make everybody happy my friend Andrea and I decided to make cupcakes that incorporated all our favorite Fall holidays. 

Here's what we came up with:

Pumpkin = Halloween (orange)

Cranberries = Thanksgiving

Chocolate and frosting = Christmas

 

Creative huh? We thought so. :P  To be honest I was a little hesitant about putting chocolate, pumpkin, and cranberries together, but these turn out awesome!  They were supppppper moist and flavorful.  I highly recommend trying these out.  Plus they are healthy...well maybe minus the brown sugar...but the holidays are all about indulging a little right?!
 

 Here's a quick overview of the ingredients that make these cupcakes NUTRITIOUS-n-Delicious:

Olive oil

Pumpkin

Applesauce

Honey

White whole wheat flour

Cinnamon

Dark chocolate chips
 

If for some odd reason you need an excuse to make these, bring them to a holiday party or work.  I am sure they will be a huge hit! 



 

MERRYTRICKORTREATANDBETHANKFUL DAY CUPCAKES

Taking pictures of white frosting is hard!  Looks like a white blur... Also note our cute cupcake liners!

 

Ingredients:

1/3 cup Brown sugar

1 1/2 tbsp Olive oil

1 1/4 cup Canned pumpkin

1/2 cup Unsweetened applesauce

2 tbsp Honey

1 Egg

1 tsp Vanilla extract

1 cup White whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Baking soda

2 tsp Ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp Ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp Ground cloves

1/4 tsp Allspice

3/4 cup Craisins

1/2 cup Dark chocolate chips

 

4 oz Cream cheese (We used fat free)

1/2 tbsp Butter

1 tsp Vanilla extract

1 tbsp Powdered sugar

 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

2. Beat the brown sugar, oil, pumpkin, applesauce, honey, egg, and vanilla together until smooth.

3. In another bowl stir together the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices.

4. Slowly add the dry into the wet ingredients while mixing.  We use my Kitchen Aid of course! Love that thing.

5. Fold in the craisins and chocolate chips.

6. Scoop the better evenly into 12 cupcake/muffin liners in a muffin pan.

7. Bake for 15-20 minutes.  Make sure to poke the inside of a cupcake to see if it is done.

8. While the cupcakes are cooling, beat together the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar to make the frosting.

9. Once the cupcakes are cooled you can frost away.

10. Enjoy a cupcake with the flavors of all your favorite holidays all rolled into one.

Makes 12 cup cakes.

 

 

Nutrition Facts:

No these cupcakes are not healthy enough to be eaten for breakfast, but they have wayyyy more nutritional value than a normal cupcake.  Plus they are packed full of health enhancing ingredients!

 

Calories: 193

Total Fat: 7 g

     Sat. Fat: 3.3 g

     Mono. Fat.: 1.8 g

Cholesterol: 18 mg

Sodium: 200 mg

Total Carbohydrates: 47 g

    Dietary Fiber: 3 g

     Sugars: 21 g

Protein: 3.5 g

Vitamin A: 14.4%

Vitamin C: 5.4%

Calcium: 3.7%

Iron: 4.6%

 

Reason #23490980 Why I Love Fall: Apple Crisp

Pin It This is going to have to be a really quick post, but I've been itching to get back to blogging!  So here it goes!

Today I was finally reunited with my bestie in the kitchen.  The two of us in the kitchen is a dangerous thing sometimes...

Exhibit A: Butter on cabinets on the opposite side of the kitchen.

Exhibit B: Cucumber carvings.

 

Exhibit C: Someone needed some discipline.

Oh! And another exciting thing about today is that fact that I got to use my new Kitchen Aid!!  Being the bakingoholic that I am, I've been drooling over one of those puppies at Target for a long time now. Luckily enough, I have super AWESOME neighbors that gave me one that they didn't have a use for.  When they told me about it I was as excited as a kid who just got tickets to Disney World.  Haha. No, but seriously... :P

Inspired by the beautiful fall colors and weather we've been having, we decided to bake some apple crisp today.  YUM.  Mmmm and the aroma it filled the house with was heavenly.  Nothing beats the smell of cinnamon and apples in the fall.  I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

APPLE CRISP

Inspired By: Healthy Food For Living

(Back to quick cell phone shots...sorry!)

Ingredients:
1 Large apple, peeled, cored, and sliced thinly
1/4 tsp Guam gum (or 1/2 tsp Cornstarch)
1/4 tsp Ground cinnamon

1 tbsp White whole wheat flour
2 tbsp Old fashioned oats
1 tbsp Granulated Sugar
1/4 tsp Ground cinnamon
Dash salt
1 tbsp Olive oil

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F degrees.
2. Prepare apple by peeling, coring, and slicing it thinly.
3. Dump apple slices into a small greased baking pan/dish.
4. Toss the apple slices with the guar gum (or cornstarch) and cinnamon.
5. In a small bowl combine the flour, oats,  sugar, cinnamon, and salt.
6. Mix in the olive oil until the mixture just starts to get crumbly.  If it doesn't you can always add a little more oil (no worries olive oil is good for you!).
7. Spread the topping mixture evenly over the apples.
8. Bake for 15 minutes and check the crisp.
9. Bake fore another 15 minutes or until topping is crisp.
10. Dig in! (Share only if you want to...)
Makes 1-2 servings.

Nutrition Facts:
Sorry friends I don't have time to calculate this today...gotta get to my 6 page report!