Joy's Lime-Ginger Baby Cakes with Creamy Coconut Frosting

This recipe is excerpted from my new book, The Joy Fit Club: Cookbook, Diet Plan & Inspiration. It's a one-of-a-kind weight loss guide that offers powerful success stories for instant inspiration, plus a full diet plan and 75 delicious, slimming recipes — like this one! — to help you lose weight and keep it off.

Prep Time: 35 minutes
Bake Time: 14 minutes

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup whole wheat pastry flour or brown rice flour
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 egg whites
• 1 whole egg
• ¾ cup white sugar
• ½ cup nonfat milk or original/plain soymilk
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 teaspoons finely shredded lime zest
• 1 teaspoon grated peeled fresh ginger or ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese, softened
• 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
• 1 6-ounce carton nonfat vanilla yogurt
• ¼ cup shredded coconut, lightly toasted

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375˚F. Place a cupcake liner in each of 12 standard-sized muffin cups. In a small bowl combine pastry flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl combine egg whites and whole egg. Beat with an electric mixer on high speed for 5 minutes. Add sugar and beat on high for 3 minutes.
2. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture. Beat just until combined. In a small bowl combine milk, oil, lime zest and ginger. Add all at once to the egg mixture. Stir just until combined. Spoon batter evenly into the prepared cupcake liners.
3. Bake for 14 to 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove cupcakes from the pan and cool completely.
4. In a medium bowl beat cream cheese and powdered sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Gradually beat in yogurt until mixture is smooth. Spoon yogurt mixture evenly on top of cooled cupcakes and sprinkle with coconut.

Tip: To pipe frosting on cupcakes, prepare the frosting as directed and then chill the frosting for 2 hours to make it more firm. Transfer frosting to a piping bag fitted with an open star tip or a large round tip. Pipe frosting onto cupcakes and sprinkle with coconut as directed.

Makes 12 servings. Serving Size: 1 cupcake

Nutrition Information (basic): Calories: 149, Protein: 4 g, Total Fat: 4 g, Saturated Fat: 1 g, Cholesterol: 21 mg, Sodium: 106 mg, Carbohydrate: 24 g, Fiber: 1 g, Sugar: 16 g

Gluten Free Lime-Ginger Baby Cakes

Prepare as directed above except substitute 1 cup brown rice flour for the whole wheat pastry flour and the all-purpose flour.

Nutrition Information (gluten free): Calories: 160, Protein: 3 g, Total Fat: 5 g, Saturated Fat: 1 g, Cholesterol: 21 mg, Sodium: 107 mg, Carbohydrate: 26 g, Fiber: 1 g, Sugar: 16 g