Friday, January 28, 2011

Recipes: Hidden Nutrition

When I was younger I used to love "hiding" nutrition in foods that were seemingly unhealthy.  That passion has continued and I am often known to infuse foods and serve them to unsuspecting friends and family. 

Several years back I brought a plate of brownies to work.  After the plate had been passed around the table a few times and I had received many compliments on my delicious brownies I decided to inform my coworkers that the brownies contained prunes instead of oil.  The room pretty much went silence and to make a long story short I cannot to this day bring in an item to work without being questioned as to whether it contained prunes.

Anyway...  here is a quick and easy way to sneak a little extra nutrition into one of my favorite foods in the world, chocolate cupcakes!





1 box Chocolate Cake Mix
1 cup pureed squash
1 egg
10 Hershey kisses (or whatever chocolate you have on hand to melt down)

Peel and cube a small squash, I used acorn.



Microwave the squash cubes for 5 minutes until soft.  Let cool and then puree in a food processor.  Add a small amount of milk if needed to make it creamy.  Add 1 egg and blend one more time.



Add pureed sqush mixture to cake mix and 1 cup water, stir to combine.

Scoop into lined cupcake papers.  The recipe should make 20 cupcakes.  Portion is key, making this recipe into 12 portions will make for 12 larger but higher calorie treats.


Bake for 18 minutes in a 350 degree oven




Let the cupcakes cool.  Place Hershey's kisses into a zip lock bag and heat in the microwave until melted and drizzle over cupcakes.  Putting chocolate on top lets us see and taste the chocolate right away.  Mixing chocolate chips or other chocolate into cupcakes can often go unnoticed whereas putting it right on top makes us think that we are eating more chocolate than we really are.  We taste with our eyes.  Drizzling 10 chocolate kisses over 20 cupcakes only adds around 15 calories per cake and look how yummy they are!




Original Recipe: 210 calories per cupcake, 9 grams of fat and <1 gram of fiber
Hidden Recipe: 130 calories per cupcake, 2.5 grams of fat and 1.5 grams of fiber.


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