Recipe: Bluerberries and White Chocolate Cupcakes

I used to hate blueberries. Something about the smell, the colour, the price! But then I don't know how or when, I started to fall in love with them! I'm still not a fan of fresh blueberries but I love them frozen and I make sure to have a packet in my freezer at all times. At only 184kJ/100g they are a great frozen sweet treat any time of day.

Two nights ago I picked up my box of frozen blueberries for a snack and discovered a recipe for blueberries and white chocolate muffins. It was VERY late in the evening but I had all the ingredients handy and decided to do some late night baking.

I made a few modifications with the recipe so here's a comparison of the original with my modified recipe.

Blueberries and White Chocolate Cupcakes

Original Recipe
Serves: 6
Modified Recipe
Serves: 14
1 cup blueberries
2 cups self raising flour


¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup white chocolate bits
1 egg, lightly beaten
¾ cup butter milk
½ cup vegetable oil
¾ cup blueberries
1 ½ cup wholemeal flour
½ cup self raising flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup low GI sugar
¼ cup white chocolate bits
1 egg, lightly beaten
¾ cup low fat milk
½ cup canola oil
¼ cup low fat yoghurt
    
Method:
  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius
  2. Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl
  3. Stir in egg, milk, yoghurt and oil 
  4. Scoop batter into lined cupcake tray evenly
  5. Push in a few blueberries and white chocolate into each cupcake 
  6. Bake for 20-25mins  

Before they go into the oven!

 

 

These were beyond delicious. The only thing I would've done differently is to put MORE blueberries in! These are more dense than your ordinary cupcakes but they were very moist and soft and filling. So perfect.

Nutritionally Speaking....

Original Recipe (Per serve)
Modified Recipe (Per serve)
Energy 2320 kJ
Protein 9.2 g
Fat (total) 23.6 g
Saturated fat 4.7 g
Carbohydrate 74.8 g
Sugars 36.7 g
Sodium 410 mg
Energy 864 kJ
Protein 4.2 g
Fat (total) 9.2 g
Saturated fat 1.4 g
Carbohydrate 25.4 g
Sugars 10.4 g
Sodium 68 mg

As you can see I have significantly reduced the kilojoules! 864kJ is still a bit high for a snack but it's a big improvement on 2320kJ. An average person's kilojoule intake for the day is 8700kJ so just having one muffin from the original recipe would be 25% of your daily intake. Not such an innocent muffin now right? 


Some easy modifications to try when baking:
  • Change the serving size. I prefer cupcakes over muffins because they're cuter and I only have cupcake tins at home ;). This way I ended up with over twice as many cupcakes than I would have! Good food should be shared so I passed some on to my neighbours, family and friends who dropped by. It's also quite impressive if they love it (and they will!) and you tell them you made them!
  • Substitute white flour with wholemeal flour. This is really easy to do if you're baking a fruit cake or nut cake since there's already different textures in the batter. If you're not sure how much to substitute try 1/4 or 1/2 of the amount in the recipe and just experiment. 
  • Choose Low GI Cane sugar, Natvia or Splenda instead of white sugar. These have lower GI or less kiljoules than white sugar. However read the packet for conversions of quantity. Usually sweeteners are several times sweeter than sugar so less may be needed.  With sugar it also helps to experiment with how much is really needed. As this cupcake already has blueberries and white chocolate I felt it would be quite sweet already so I cut 1/4 cup of sugar off and it was still quite sweet.
  • Choose low fat ingredients. This includes using low fat milk, cream, yoghurt etc. Choose maragrine instead of butter. This can reduce the kilojoule content as well as the total and saturated fat.
  • I've been exprimenting with adding yoghurt to my cakes and so far so good! Adding 1/4- 1 cup of yoghurt can make cakes more moist, dense and increase the protein content. Definitely will be experimenting more with yoghurt!     
 Let me know about any recipe modifications you've made and how it turned out!

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Disclaimer

The information presented on this blog acts as general nutrition advice and is not tailored to meet individual needs. It should not be used as a replacement for any medical advice you have recieved from medical practitioners. Please discuss any concerns for your health with your doctor or Accredited Practicing Dietitian before starting a new dietary or exercise regime as they can give more personalised recommendations.

I make every effort to ensure information on Nutrition with Wendy is correct and up to date however nutrition is an evolving field and discrepancies can arise. If the information here appears incorrect or out of date please let me know and I will do my best to update my posts.