Sinless Chocolate Banana Muffins

I always try to buy only 2-3 bananas at a time. Whenever I buy more than that, I inevitably end up with a couple of bananas that sit on my counter until they are too ripe for my tastes. However, this past week, I bought a whole bunch of bananas with every intention of eating them all! 

Alas, as always, two poor bananas remained past their prime. My boyfriend nearly threw them away! *GASP!!* 

Fortunately for the bananas, I intercepted them on the way to their doomed demise. Fortunately for me, I had a box of cake mix that also needed to be used up! I had such success with the pumpkin + water + cake mix recipe, I decided to give bananas a try in lieu of pumpkin!

The result? A delicious and moist chocolate banana muffin (or cupcake). These would be even MORE delicious if you added 1 tsp of chocolate chips to each muffin tin! (adds 1 Weight Watchers PointsPlus per muffin).

Sinless Chocolate Banana Muffins

Yields: 24 servings
Serving Size: 1 muffin 
PointsPlus per Serving: 2 PointsPlus (OPTIONAL: add 1 tsp chocolate chips to each tin for a total of 3 PointsPlus per muffin!)
 
Ingredients
1 box chocolate cake mix (I used Pillsbury Devil's Food Cake)
2 extra-ripe bananas, mashed (Enough for 1 cup)
1 cup water (plus maybe a little extra if the batter is too thick for your tastes)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mash bananas thoroughly or put bananas and water in food processor/blender and blend until smooth.

Add cake mix and mix thoroughly.

Spoon into lined or greased muffin tins (regular size). 

Bake for 18 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

Remove muffins from the pan and let cool.

Enjoy!

"Eat The Whole Bowl" Ice Cream!

Have you ever taken a look at the nutrition label of your favorite ice cream? Did you notice the serving size? Have you ever measured out 1 serving of that ice cream? If you're on Weight Watchers like I am, then you probably have done all of the above at least once!

Sometimes, a half a cup of ice cream just isn't enough! Sometimes, you just want a whole full bowl of the stuff!

That's me tonight. All I want is a big, chock-full bowl of fudgey, peanut buttery ice cream! Now, I don't have an ice cream maker. However, I happened to remember an idea from one of my favorite recipe bloggers: Chocolate-Covered Katie's voluminous vanilla ice cream!

Now, Katie's recipes all recommend using some creamer or coconut milk to help make the ice cream creamier. However, since I'm on Weight Watchers, my goal is different -- volume without additional Points Plus! Katie mentions that her ice cream recipes tend to be less rich using just almond milk (my non-dairy milk of choice, but you can use soy milk, coconut milk, or whatever!); so, I was wondering if there was some way to re-introduce the "creamy" without the Points Plus!

...Here's what I came up with ;)

"Eat the Whole Bowl" Ice Cream

Yields: 1 serving

Serving Size: The whole darn thing! ;)

PointsPlus per Serving: If you run this through Weight Watcher's recipe builder, the banana and almond milk base = 3 PointsPlus ...and additional points will depend upon your add-ins. However, if you're like me and do not want to count PointsPlus for the banana (since this is a raw combination of ingredients), then the PointsPlus are determined by ONLY your add-ins. For my add-ins today, it was 3 PointsPlus.

Ingredients

1 medium banana, sliced

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (or non-dairy milk of your choice; may affect PointsPlus values)

1 TBS Reduced Fat Peanut Butter (optional)

1 TBS Wax Orchard Fudge Sauce (or chocolate/fudge sauce of your choice; just be sure to calculate the PointsPlus!)

1 tsp Splenda (or other sweetener, if desired. I did not add any sweetener to mine tonight!)

Directions

Slice your banana and put some slices into small bowls (or into an ice cube tray!)

Pour your 1/2 cup of almond or other non-dairy milk evenly into the small dishes with some of the banana slices.  

Place the remaining banana slices on a plate. Place all of the banana slices and banana/milk mixture into the freezer and freeze completely through.

Remove frozen milk/banana mixture by running the bottom of the containers under hot water until you can pop the frozen portion out.

Place all banana slices and milk/banana mixture portions into your food processor (I have not tried this in a regular blender and can't vouch for whether that would work or not).

Blend until the mixture turns "pebbly" as shown below

Add your mix-ins and optional sweetener! I used reduced fat natural peanut butter and Wax Orchard Fudge Fantasy Sauce

Blend until the mixture becomes one well-blended, creamy portion

Scoop into a dish using an ice cream scoop (or just a spoon...or eat directly from blender!)

Enjoy!

 

Dye-Free Red Velvet Cupcakes

Every Christmas Eve, my entire family gathers at my great grandmother (who, by the way, is a ripe and healthy 97 years old this year). Aunts, uncles, cousins, children of all ages...we all gather, Santa (yes, the real Santa!) comes to hand out gifts, and we indulge in a huge dinner and dessert spread. 

Christmas happens to be my grandmother's birthday, and every year, either she or my great grandmother brings a red velvet cake as a birthday cake. My eldest cousin happens to love red velvet cake, but she is allergic to red food dye, which happens to be perhaps the #1 ingredient in red velvet cake. Despite all of us telling her not to, my cousin generally eats a piece of cake despite her allergies and promptly gets a stomach ache for the rest of the evening.

Not this year! 

This year, I called the whole family and told them that I would be bringing the red velvet cake...and that it would be completely free of red food dye. That is a pretty hefty promise to make, but I've become sort of the "birthday cake connoisseur" in my family; I have been baking all the birthday cakes recently. I had been reading up on dye-free red velvet cakes for a couple of months, actually. The absolute best recipe I've found (based on all the pH level research) is a recipe on a blog called Sophistimom. Her All-Natural Red Velvet Cake recipe and pictures were perhaps the most convincing I'd seen! (Seriously, gorgeous cake in her pictures...mine won't be that beautiful, I'm afraid.) In any case, while her recipe looks amazing, it is a bit heavier than I was going for (she freely admits that she was going for a very heavy cake). So, I set out to modify the recipe to create a lower-calorie, lower-point, lighter red velvet cake. I decided to create cupcakes on this dry run, though the cake I'll be bringing to Christmas Eve will be a two-layer cake (you can do the same using the same measurements from this recipe). 

So, I dedicate this recipe to my great grandmother (pictured below), who has been such a huge inspiration to me...especially when it comes to cooking, crocheting, and being a genuine person ;) I love you, Nana!

My Nana - 97 years old. NEVER too old for Santa Clause!

Dye-Free Red Velvet Cupcakes

Yields: 24 servings

Serving Size: 1 cupcake + 1 TBS of frosting

PointsPlus per serving: 4P+ (1 cupcake with 1 TBS frosting) 3P+ (1 cupcake NO frosting)

Ingredients

2 beets (enough for 3/4 cups puree)

2 TBS fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup fat free buttermilk

1 1/3 cup white sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup white all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp table salt

4 TBS natural cocoa powder

1 container Betty Crocker Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

Note: while I used whipped cream cheese frosting from a can for this recipe, you can, of course, make your own frosting using a different recipe. The cupcakes without frosting are 3 PointsPlus; you will need to calculate the PointsPlus of your own homemade frosting if you choose not to use the pre-made stuff!

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Peel beets. Place in a small baking dish with enough water on the bottom to cover the entire bottom of the baking dish.

Cover with parchment paper and  tin foil. Bake at 350 for 90 minutes (until beets are very tender).

When beets are fully cooked, slice into small pieces and put into food processor or blender. Blend with lemon juice until a smooth puree forms. Measure out 3/4 cups of the puree and put in small dish.

In a large mixing bowl, mix oil, buttermilk, and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Add chocolate extract (you can use vanilla extract if you can't find chocolate extract). Mix until well-blended.

In a smaller bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder.

Slowly add dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Mix until smooth.

Fold beet puree into the batter.

Line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

Spoon batter into cupcake liners.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean.

Allow cupcakes to cool before frosting them.

Enjoy!

Super Cinnamon Snickerdoodles

This evening, I had planned to treat myself to some Edy's Half-Fat Peppermint Ice Cream. However, around 7:30PM, I suddenly got a craving for cookies. ANY cookies really... So, I went digging in my pantry and decided to try my hand at some snickerdoodles. 

Here's what I got!

Super-Cinnamon Snickerdoodles

Yields: 3 and a half dozen (3 dozen if you make them bigger)

Serving Size: 1 cookie

PointsPlus per serving: 2 P+

Ingredients

2 cups flour, sifted 

2 eggs

2/3 cups vegetable oil

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Topping

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine the 1 tsp sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. Set aside.

In a larger bowl, combine sifted flour, oil, remaining 1 tsp cinnamon, remaining 3/4 cups sugar, baking powder, salt, eggs, vanilla (right - that's everything!) :)

Mix well until dough forms.

Roll tablespoons of dough into balls.

Dip ball into cinnamon/sugar mixture.

Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (or use a non-stick pan or spray pan with cooking spray).

Using a fork, press the cookie once across and once up and down as shown in the image (criss-cross).

Bake at 400 degrees for 6 minutes.

Remove and let cool.

ENJOY!

Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes with Whipped Chocolate Frosting

OK, I admit, I got the idea for these cupcakes from the  SkinnyTaste recipe for pumpkin-spiced cupcakes. It's a fantastic recipe, but last night, I was in the mood for chocolate.

I hit the grocery store with every intention of purchasing No-Pudge Brownie Mix to satiate my craving only to find that my grocery store doesn't carry the product. I was in too much of a hurry to go to another of the billion grocery stores in the D.C. metro region, so I pouted and contemplated buying a different type of brownie... like possibly those Ghirardelli ones with triple the chocolate, fudge topping, and a billion calories.

That's when I remembered the SkinnyTaste recipe and thought "I wonder if it'll work with chocolate." A quick comparison of the cake mix boxes showed that the nutrition information was the same so.... I gave it a shot.

All you need to make the cake portion of these cupcakes are three ingredients:
a 15-oz box of Betty Crocker Devil's Food Cake mix
1 cup of pumpkin (not pie mix - just pumpkin!)
and 1 cup of water

However, I am too lazy and too broke to make my own frosting. Plus, let's face it... I really wanted a finger-full of REAL frosting...straight from the jar. Fortunately, Betty Crocker also makes these whipped frostings (including chocolate!) that are only 100 calories (or 2 PointsPlus for those of us on Weight Watchers) for 2 whole tablespoons.

Ingredients in hand, I set out to test the recipe. (Note: I apologize for the crummy pictures; they'll have to suffice until I can get a better camera. I'm on a budget you know!)

Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes with Whipped Chocolate Frosting

Serving Size: 1 Cupcake and 1 TBS Frosting
WW Points Plus: 3 Points+ With Frosting, 2 P+ Without Frosting
Calories: 120

Ingredients
15oz package of Betty Crocker Super-Moist Devil's Food Cake mix
1 cup canned pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie mix - JUST pumpkin)
1 cup water
Betty Crocker Whipped Chocolate Frosting

Directions

Combine the cake mix, canned pumpkin, and water in a bowl

Mix the cake mix, water, and pumpkin together until ingredients are thoroughly combined and smooth.

Spoon the mix into a cupcake pan lined with paper cupcake liners

Bake  at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove cupcakes and allow to cool

Once the cupcakes are cooled, top each with 1 TBS of the whipped chocolate frosting.

ENJOY!!!