Whole-wheat orange jaggery cupcakes with caramelized orange zest (Eggless and butterless)

A rainy evening, warm home-baked cupcakes with a hot cup of tea!! Sounds divine right? Well I just experienced the bliss with my family and I'm very happy to spread and share the cheer with you all!

I have adapted the recipe from two sources. The muffin recipe is from vegrecipesofindia.com and the idea for caramelized orange zest is adapted from Rachel Allen's show - Cake diaries!

The muffins can be had as such, without the glaze or zest and they are low in fat, as I have used only whole-wheat flour, jaggery and olive oil. To make it a little special, you can include the sweet and tangy topping. Try out this delicious recipe and do let me know if you liked it :)

You might also like to try out my other low fat cakes:

• Healthy Banana Walnut Loaf
• Whole-wheat brownies (Eggless and butterless)
• Carrot - wheat flakes cake (Eggless and butterless)
• Ragi Chocolate Cake (Eggless and butterless)

INGREDIENTS:

For the orange muffins: (Makes 4 medium sized muffins)

• Whole-wheat flour/chappathi aata - 1/2 cup
• Salt -a pinch
• Baking powder - 1/4 teaspoon
• Baking soda - 1/4 teaspoon
• Powdered jaggery - 1/4 cup
• Olive oil - 1/8 cup
• Fresh orange juice - 1/3 cup
• Orange zest (grated orange peel) - 1/4 teaspoon

Note: You could replace the whole-wheat flour with maida(all purpose flour), jaggery with white sugar and olive oil with any other flavorless oil/melted butter

Extract the orange juice just before adding it to the batter, else it will get bitter

For the chocolate ganache:

• Dark chocolate - 50 grams, grated
• Fresh cream - 25 ml (I used Amul low fat fresh cream)

For the caramelized orange zest:

• Orange zest/grated orange peel - from 1/2 orange
• Sugar - 3 teaspoons
• Water - as needed

METHOD:

For the muffins:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 C and line/grease 4 muffin moulds
2. Sieve together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda
3. Mix oil and jaggery in a separate bowl and beat well
4. To the oil + jaggery mixture, add the orange juice and beat well. Add in the orange zest and give it a mix
5. Gently fold in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix. Do not over beat/mix the batter
6. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin moulds and bake for 15-20 minutes (Mine was done at 16 minutes). Insert a toothpick/skewer into the muffin, if it comes out clean then it is ready
7. Cool the muffins on a wire rack. Enjoy them warm as such, or top it up with the below glaze

For the chocolate ganache:

1. In a pan, add the cream and heat it. When it just starts to boil or bubbles start appearing (Do not let it to boil), remove from heat and add the grated dark chocolate
2. Mix well till the chocolate melts. Set it aside to cool
3. The ganache can be prepared well in advance and refrigerated. Just before using it, microwave it for 10 seconds

For the caramelized orange zest:

1. Boil a cup of water and remove it from heat. Add the orange peels to boiled water and keep it closed for 5 minutes
2. Drain the water from the zest and keep it aside
3. In a pan, add sugar and about a tablespoon of water. Heat it and keep stirring continuously
4. When the sugar melts and starts to change color to light brown, immediately remove from heat and add the boiled zest and mix well
5. Leave it for a minute and drain the zest
6. Spread the zest/peels on a plate and sprinkle a teaspoon of powdered sugar on top, mix it with your hands so that the sugar coats the peel

Assembling the cupcakes:

1. Spread a spoonful of ganache over each of the muffin
2. Sprinkle the caramelized orange zest on top of the ganache
3. That's it!! Enjoy your weekend snack :)

Linking this recipe to Bake Fest event #37