Saying Happy Birthday with Yogurt

(Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos when I was making these cupcakes, so you'll just have to imagine them!) (Also, I wrote this post about two weeks ago ...) I try to take in a birthday treat to work every year (last year I made Mexican hot chocolate cupcakes), mostly because I like cooking and baking. This year, it kind of snuck up on me and it doesn't help that my mind is mentally, already, in Mexico (we leave for vacation on my actual birthday, March 30). That said, I started thinking today that I should take something to work tomorrow. I put out a call on Twitter to see if anyone had any suggestions. Rachel (aka @Magrick) gave me a good idea: she remembered back to our conversation yesterday at Paul and Lori's soup night about us needing to use up all our yogurt before leaving for the week. I did some Googling, and came across this recipe for "Wonderful Yogurt Cake." I knew I didn't want to make an entire cake (plus, I don't have a bundt pan (Gasp! I know ... ), so luckily I came across one of the comments left below the recipe about making cupcakes instead. I was pretty intrigued by the thought of using yogurt in baking, PLUS I was super excited to use some of the yogurt up, so I don't end up having it for breakfast, lunch and dinner tomorrow. Anyhoo, you can follow along with the actual recipe. Otherwise, here is what I ended up doing. I've never really experimented with baking, so this was kind of fun! Wonderful Yogurt Cupcakes makes 12

• 1/2 cup butter, softened


• 1 cup sugar (I mixed brown and white sugar)


• 1 teas. vanilla extract


• about 1/8 teas. almond extract


• 1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt


• 1/2 cup vanilla nonfat yogurt


• 2 cups AP flour


• 1 egg


• 1 teas. baking soda


• 1/2 teas. baking powder


• jam (I used a three-berry jam)


• powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin/cupcake tins with nonstick spray.

In a bowl, cream butter, sugar and extracts. Beat in egg until smooth. In another bowl, mix flour, baking soda and baking powder. Stir into the sugar mixture, alternating with yogurt.

Scoop half the mixture into the muffin tins. Using a 1/2 teaspoon, drop a dollop of jam on top of each bit of batter. Put the rest of the mixture on top of each cupcake.

Bake for 350 for 30 minutes or until tooth pick comes out clean. Using a shaker or sifter, sprinkle powdered sugar on top.

Nate and I split one after dinner tonight (I didn't want to take something horrible into work!). They're really quite good--they're not dry at all and the jam gives it a nice kick. They aren't too sweet either, which I really like. I'm sure they'd be good with frosting, but they're just as good with just the powdered sugar.