Lemon-Ginger Cupcakes

This week's BSI is lemon. (Blogger Secret Ingredient)  Luckily for me, I love lemon and had just bought a huge bag of fresh lemons when they were on sale at the grocery store last week.  It was very hard to decide what to make for this week's roundup.  Lemon is a great ingredient in both sweet and savory dishes.  It's acidic nature brightens up almost any dish.  As a rule, I always squeeze a half of lemon in my broth based soups at the end of cooking.  It really "wakes" the soup up!  But, after careful consideration, I decided to flavor a favorite reduced fat, from scratch cupcake recipe combining two of my favorite flavors, lemon and ginger.   I was not disappointed with the results!  The lemon flavor is really the star here, but in each bite, you get a subtle taste of ginger too.   Each cupcake comes in at 4 points+ ( minus any frosting ) and cupcakes are a natural portion control item!

You can either top these moist and tender cupcakes with traditional frosting ( be sure to add additional points+ if you do ) or they are fantastic with a dollop of fat free cool whip for no additional points!  These cupcakes also freeze very well, just freeze them without any topping, and you can defrost as many as you like and top them how you like.   If you have never made cupcakes from scratch, give this recipe a go....it is super easy and I have never been disappointed by the results. 

Lemon-Ginger Cupcakes adapted from Crazy About Cupcakes by Krystina Castella

Servings - 16 cupcakes   Servings size - 1 cupcake ( no topping )  PP per svg - 4 points+

( plain cupcake, no topping ) Calories - 153.8,   Total Fat - 4.8g,   Carb. - 25.3g,   Protein - 2.6g,   Fiber - 0.4g

6 TBS. unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup skim milk

2 TBS. nonfat dry milk

1 large egg, at room temperature

2 TBS. lemon juice

zest of one lemon

2 cups all purpose, unbleached,  flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Insert foil or paper liners into standard muffin pans or spray muffin pan wells with cooking spray if not using liners.  

2.  In a large bowl, combine the butter and the sugar with a hand mixer on low speed until coarse, about 1 1/2 minutes.  

3.  In a small bowl,  ( I used a 4 cup glass measure ) combine the milk, dry milk, egg, and lemon juice.  Mixture may look curdled...and that's fine.  Add milk mixture to the butter mixture and beat on medium speed until frothy, about one minute.  Fold in lemon zest.  

4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and ginger with a whisk.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and pour the butter mixture in the center.  Mix on low until combined, then mix on medium speed for 10 - 20 seconds.  

5.  Fill cupcake liners three-quarters full.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until cupcakes are lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center of them comes out clean.  Cool cupcakes in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to finish cooling. 

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Ready to frost and decorate

Topped with Fat Free cool whip for a 0 point+ topping