Carrot and Ginger Cupcakes

Another variation on my favourite – and immensely popular – butternut squash muffins. These are dangerously moreish, but at just half a syn (less in fact) each, you can really enjoy a couple without feeling guilty. They don't last very well in the fridge or a cake tin; but they freeze well – I have placed mine in containers with six cakes (without the icing) to take out for as and when we want a little treat, without going overboard.

Makes 36

½ syn each*

* providing you use the oats as your Healthy Extra b and cheese as your Healthy Extra A. Nine cakes constitutes one HexB and HexA.

140g porridge oats

2 tubs fat free thick plain Greek yogurt

100g sultanas

2 tsp baking powder

8 eggs, separated

2-3 tbsps mixed spice

½ – 1 cup of sweetener to taste

1 can sugar free ginger beer

3-4 large carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks

a knob of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

300g cream cheese

sweetener to taste

a few drops of rum essence

First of all, in a small bow, place the sultanas and pour over enough ginger beer to cover. Leave to infuse and swell. Next put the oats in a large bowl and mix in the yogurt and the rest of the ginger beer. If you are using a thinner, runnier yogurt, cut down on the amount of liquid you use.

Leave these mixtures to soak for at least a couple of hours, ideally overnight. Boil the carrots with the ginger and leave to cool. Whizz in a food processor until smooth.

In a large bowl whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Whisk the egg yolks and add the sweetener, mixed spice and baking powder. (Don't do as I did – thinking that I might forget to add the baking powder – I wasn't following a recipe, I was making it up as I went along – I measured it out when I thought of it earlier and just put it on top of the oat mixture for stirring in later. Wrong! By the time I came to stir it in, the baking powder had drawn the moisture from the oat mix and was one hard, white cake. Oops. I managed to break it up by whisking it in with the egg whites, but it was certainly a learning point!)

Stir the egg yolks and carrot mix into the oat mixture, add the sultanas and gently fold in the egg whites, making sure everything is mixed in well. Spoon into well greased muffin cases. I find I like to keep stirring the mixture while I am putting it into the little muffin cases, as the sultanas tend to sink to the bottom fairly quickly.

Bake in the oven at 180°C for 20-30 minutes, until they are cooked through. They should be springy, not fluffy when you touch them gently with your finger, and a skewer inserted should come out clean.

For the icing, mix together the cream cheese, sweetener and rum essence and spread on top of the cakes.

Enjoy!

Zucchini Muffins

There's been a lot of talk on Facebook amongst my American friends recently about the virtues of Zucchini Muffins (courgettes to those of us in England), so I thought I'd try a little experiment, by combining the ever-so-succesful oat pancake recipe, the half-syn roulade recipe and a traditional carrot cake recipe, but substituting courgettes for the carrots and baking it in muffin cases rather than cake tins. I peeled the courgette because the skin was a little blemished, but this should not be necessary. Of course, you may want to peel it to avoid having green bits in your muffins.

The result was way better than I had hoped for. The cake was light, moist and tasty, with the consistency of a bread pudding, and the taste was very spicy and fruity. 

 

Serves 4*

1 Syn on Extra Easy**
** Providing you use the oats as your Healthy Extra B

You could, of course, omit the sultanas and make the cake almost syn free, as there is only ½ syn in the baking powder. I thought the sultanas were worth the syns though.

70g porridge oats

1 tub Müllerlight toffee yogurt

2-3 tbsp sugar free appleade

1 large courgette, grated

½ cup sweetener or to taste

2 tsp mixed spice

20g sultanas (total 3 syns)

2 eggs, separated

1 tsp baking powder (total ½ syns)

Start the day before you want to eat the cakes. Soak the oats in the yogurt with 1 tbsp appleade, the spices and sweetener overnight. In a separate small bowl, soak the sultanas in just enough appleade to cover them.

The next day, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the baking powder. I find it is best at this stage to taste the oat mixture and adjust the spices or sweetener if necessary. Mix together the oats, grated courgettes and sultanas with the egg yolks and stir thoroughly. Carefully fold in the egg whites and pour into 12 muffin cases. Bake at 200°C for 10-15 minutes until a skewer comes out clean and the top feels spongy. Mine took a bout 18 minutes in total. 

 

Cheese and Bacon Muffins

 

This is my first attempt at savoury muffins, and I have to say I was very apprehensive at first. They are not really muffins in the true sense of the word of course, as there is no flour in the recipe, the consistency was more like soufflés. They were very moist and soft – maybe they would firm up if they were allowed to cool? Who knows, we scoffed them all while still warm. Use a strong cheese such as parmesan to maximise the flavour - mustard powder helps to bring out the flavour of cheese while adding no extra calories or syns.  

 

Makes

¼ Syn on Extra Easy*

* Providing you use the cheese and oats as your Healthy Extra A and B, half this recipe will be ¼ syn.

35g rolled oats

170g fat free natural yogurt

60g parmesan cheese, finely grated

¼ tsp salt

2 tsps mustard powder

1 gammon steak, cooked and chopped

1 large leek

2 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

Soak the oats in yogurt and 1 tbsp water overnight. Thinly slice the leek and sauté in Fry Light until soft. Separate the eggs, and whisk the whites until soft peaks form. Mix the egg yolks with the oats, baking powder, salt, mustard powder, leeks, gammon bits and cheese. Fold in the whites gently, making sure it is all mixed well. Spoon into individual muffin tins and bake at 190°C for 20-25 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. 

 

I did get rather carries away taking photos of the muffins. 

 

Blueberry and Ricotta Muffins

These have the taste of muffins, but the texture is much lighter and a bit more spongy. They are sugar free, fat free, gluten free and certainly guilt free. Enjoy!

Makes ca 12 muffins

3 syn on Extra Easy for the whole recipe*

* Providing you use the ricotta as your Healthy Extra A, and oats as Healthy Extra B

35g rolled oats

85g fat free natural yogurt

1 tbsp sweetener

2 eggs

85g ricotta

½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

100g blueberries

Start the day before you want to eat the muffins. Soak the oats in the yogurt, sweetener and ca 2 tbsp water (depending on the consistency of the yogurt) overnight.

Separate the eggs and whisk the whites until soft peaks form. In a separate bowl, mix together the yolks, ricotta, baking powder, oats and cinnamon. Adjust seasoning and if necessary add more sweetener. Stir in the blueberries. Carefully fold in the egg whites, one third at a time.

Place spoonfuls of the mixture in muffin tins and bake for 20-25 minutes at 190°C, until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the muffins, and the top is nicely brown.