150-Calorie Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Today I made over my Triple Chocolate Fantasy Cake, a original recipe which has been a longtime hit with family & friends (but a total calorie bomb at 350+ calories per cupcake!).The revised recipe turned out incredibly well and really reasonable calorie-wise, so I thought I'd share!!

Chocolate Fantasy Cake

Dry Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup (210g) white whole wheat flour
1 cup (192g) Splenda baking blend - -[I'm not 100% sure this volume-to-weight conversion is correct; I measured by weight]
3/4 cup (63g) Hershey's unsweetened cocoa
1.5 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Moist Ingredients:
2 eggs (separated)
1 cup unsweetened original almond milk
1/4 cup (56g) canola oil
1/4 cup (62g) unsweetened applesauce
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup (60g) Hershey's milk chocolate chips, melted
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together all dry ingredients. Add all moist ingredients except for egg whites and boiling water. Mix by hand (or on low in a stand mixer) until completely combined. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites into batter. Stir in boiling water; batter will be extremely thin. Pour into two greased & floured 9" cake pans or two lined cupcake pans and bake immediately: 15-18 minutes for cupcakes or 28-30 minutes for large cakes. (May take slightly longer; cake will form a solid exterior but the "toothpick test" will not work--the toothpick will never come out quite clean.)

Yield: 22 cupcakes

Per unfrosted cupcake: 90 calories / 4.5g fat / 12g carbs (4g sugar) / 2.5g protein



Low-Fat Peanut Butter Frosting:

(Note: This turns out like something between a frosting and a glaze--haven't quite perfected it, but a dozen people think it tastes great, so it's what I'm using on them for now! This frosting would not work for a full-size cake because of the consistency.)

1 cup (96g) PB2 powdered peanut butter
1-1/2 cup (180g) powdered sugar
6 tbsp cornstarch
4-5 TBSP almond milk

Mix PB2 with 2 TBSP almond milk. Mixture will be very thick; just keep mixing. Add powdered sugar and continue mixing. If you need a drop or two more of almond milk to be able to mix in all the powdered sugar, use it--but be VERY sparing. Once the first three ingredients have blended, add the cornstarch one TBSP at a time to thicken the frosting.

If divided into 22 servings (one per cupcake) the nutrition data looks like this per serving: 41 calories / 0.5g fat / 8g carbs (4.5g sugar) / 2g protein



I garnished my frosted cupcakes with 8 chocolate chips each, which brought the nutrition grand totals to: 155 calories / 23g carbs (11g sugar) / 6g fat / 5g protein



Hope somebody else who is a total chocolate & peanut butter junkie like me finds this recipe useful!!