I’ve been busy today, baking tray after tray of sugar and spice cookies:

They were intended as gifts, but bad weather changed our plans, and now we’ll be eating dozens of delicious cookies ourselves! What a hardship 😉

Cookie, anyone? Help yourself…

Happy Christmas to all my readers! I hope your holidays are happy and restful.

Mmmm, muffins. What’s not to love about a muffin? Delicious, convenient, and… did I mention delicious?

Of course, a regular muffin usually contains between 10 and 25g of fat, which takes the edge off the pleasure of eating it. Low fat muffin recipes are a lot healthier (e.g. my Quaker Low Fat Banana Muffin Mix contains 1.5g fat per muffin) but tend to be a bit light and unsatisfying, and lack the moist, heavy goodness of a regular muffin.

I have a solution to make a healthy muffin that really does taste good! Mix your low fat muffin ingredients as directed in your recipe or mix packet, then add some magic ingredients (quantities below are for 12 muffins; if you are making a different number, adjust these amounts accordingly):

1/2 cup apple sauce
1/3 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup fruit or chocolate chips (e.g. I like to use raisins or fresh blueberries)

Add these to your mix, then spoon it into your muffin pans and bake as directed. (You may need to add 1-2 mins to the regular cooking time.)

Et voila…

Mmmmm, fresh banana raisin muffins… Are you hungry yet?

I heard about this idea a while ago – making a low fat cake from a packet of cake mix by replacing the usual added ingredients (water, eggs, oil) with a can of diet carbonated beverage of choice. So tonight I tried it out for myself.

Ingredients:

• 1 packet cake mix (I used Dr. Oetker Added Touch Chocolate Cake Mix)
• 1 can diet cola (my preference is Diet Pepsi)

That’s it! Mix and bake for the time and temperature given on the cake mix packet. I used half the packet of cake mix and half a can of Diet Pepsi (so I wouldn’t waste as much if the recipe was a disaster) and it made 9 cupcakes (baked in a muffin pan pre-greased with spray oil). I baked them for 20 mins at 350°F (180°C) et voila:

Mmm, cake…

I am pleasantly surprised: it looks just like regular cake and the texture is light and moist. The flavour is a little different from a regular chocolate cake, but it is GOOD. And considering that the finished cakes have 100 calories each and less than 1g of fat, it’s amazing.

You can use any flavour of cake mix and any flavour of diet soda – I think lemon or golden cake with diet 7-up would work well. And if you iced them they’d be even better.

Verdict: quick, easy, good value, yummy, AND not too sinful!