These little babies here (the cupcakes, not the zucchinis. Dad picked one which was seventy times the size of my head yesterday, so there’s no way I can call them “little babies”), are the way I’ll be using this three-tons worth of summer produce. Who’s complaining? Not me or my brothers, for sure.
Cupcakes, all day, all night. From Monday to Sunday. For breakfast, lunch and dinner <<<< Now, that’s a life I’d love to lead.
Funny thing with my brothers is that they are the pickiest eaters you’ll ever come across. They won’t ever touch a veggie – they won’t even look at veggies. The mere sight of a green pepper scares them. I think they’d rather starve before having to eat a tiny piece of zucchini.
God, they’d make such terrible vegans, seeing as all thing legumes are grains are on their black list too. I don’t know how we can be family, because veg and legumes is all I eat. Preferibly in the form of cupcakes and chocolate protein bars.
But, see? I told you they were awful when it comes to eating healthy food.
Though, thing is they LOVED these. Man, they demolished the whole batch in mere seconds. Boom, two minutes and the cupcake tin was as empty as my soul when I finished the last season of GoT. Nothing. Nada. Rien de rien. Zero cupcakes in the box.
WHO HATES VEGGIES NOW, HUH.
I proceed and laughed at their faces as they’d wiped the crumbs of their mouths and then told them what was in them, which went kind of like this:
-Brother #1: don’t dare tell me what’s in here because I really want to eat the whole batch and I don’t want to know that they’re made of chickpeas, beans, cauliflower or that sort of healthy poo you put in our food.
-Me: Zu……….
-Brother #2: *yells as he swallows the cupcake down*: DON’T TELL US
-Me: ….. chi………..
-Brother #1: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO STAWPH
-Me: …………………………………………………… ni
-Me: *laughs and leaves the room*
#evil, I know.
Anyway – those two veggie haters ADORED the cupcakes.
“One Cupcake to rule them all, One Cupcake to find them, One Cupcake to bring them all (to the kitchen), And in the darkness bind them “
Veggie lovers or veggie haters, I can assure you that if you make a batch of these and bribe people with them, YOU WILL RULE THEM ALL.
I shall call these “precious” instead of “Skinny Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes” from now on, who’s with me?
((If you got this reference as well……….. seriously, why aren’t we bff? You should come round for movie watching and tea drinking))
Sorry I got so carried away. I shouldn’t be allowed to write at 1am butttttttttt, it’s the only time when I can use my laptop without burning my tights.
#summerproblems
But I really mean it. Fudgy, moist and chocolaty – these cupcakes are the way to rule the world. The frosting is also finger-licking good (not that I had to make extra because I ate half of it with a spoon or something, what are you on about?), and way less sweet than a traditional one.
Seriously, I love the idea of cupcakes, because they’re pretty and you know I’m all in for adorable food and stuff BUT I cannot face the idea of eating one because… oh well, they’re way too sweet for me!
This version though, is not likely to win a beauty contest (cupcakes? more like cupcacas, I’d say. Pssh: caca = poo in Spanish. See what I did there? Ok, I’ll stop now), but is way less sweet than the real deal, and therefore healthier – hello, do hear cupcakes for breakfast???
Put an ugly cupcake in your life. It’s guaranteed to make you 324794 times happier.
And I totally didn’t make up that fact.
Skinny Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes
Ingredients:
- 1 cup white whole wheat flour
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp. stevia (not the strong version!)
- 1/2 tbsp. instant coffee granules
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- a pinch of salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup 2% greek yogurt
- 2 cups grated zucchini
- 1/4 cup 2% buttermilk
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 100 grams dark chocolate (optional, but not really)
- For the frosting
- 8 oz. light cream cheese
- 1/2 cup hot cocoa powder
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 180ºC (375F)
- Grate the zucchini. You may use a food processor for this.
- Whisk together flours, cacao powder, sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking powder.
- The stir in eggs, yogurt, buttermilk, oil and zucchini and mix with a wooden spoon or similar until combined. Batter will be rather thick!
- Chop chocolate and add chunks to the batter. Mix to combine.
- Bake at 180ºC for 15-20 minutes or until you insert a toothpick in the center of the cupcake and it comes out quite clean (you might touch a chocolate chunk and that’s why it might not come 100% clean!)
- Let them cool before you frost them!
- For the frosting, mix cream cheese and hot cocoa powder with a whisk until smooth.
- Let it chill on the fridge for at least one hour before you frost the cupcakes.
Notes:
Remember to soften cream cheese before you mix it with the hot cocoa powder.
Feel free to use whichever brand of cocoa powder you prefer. I used the plain version, but you can go with sugar free, white chocolate, caramel, orange-chocolate, etc….
