Image and Recipe Copyright © 2008 Jennifer Iserloh
Grapefruit and buttermilk are both high in nutrition, but create a tender texture in baked goods. When I bake these for friends’ birthdays, no one guesses that they are made with grapefruit. Regardless, they disappear fast! Watch Better TV clip featuring this recipe!
Makes 12 cupcakes
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup reduced fat margarine, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg white
1/2 cup 1% buttermilk or plain low-fat yogurt
1/2 cup 100% pink grapefruit juice
1 tablespoon pink grapefruit zest
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
Ingredients for Icing
1 8-ounce package of non-fat or reduced-fat cream cheese
½ cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground clove
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat margarine and sugar with an electric mixer.
Beat in egg. Combine lemon extract, juice, zest, and buttermilk in a small bowl. Add half the buttermilk mixture and beat on low speed. Add half the flour mixture and beat just until combined. Repeat with remaining buttermilk and flour mixture. Divide batter evenly into the prepared cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the cupcakes spring back when the tops are pressed or until a toothpick tester comes out clean. Remove the cupcakes from the muffin pan an cool completely on a wire rack.
In a medium bowl, beat ingredients for icing until smooth. Once the cupcakes are cool, use a small spatula or butter knife to ice them. Store refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Make It A Meal
Serve with Healthy Buttermilk Chicken and Buttermilk Biscuits or Citrus Almond Chicken.
Related Posts
- Find out why grapefruit is good for you.
- Did you know that grapefruit can also help to prevent you from catching a cold?
Yummy!! What a wonderfully innovative recipe!! I love it!!!
these were amazing- the icing was out of this world. this is my 5th recipe i have made from this site and i loved it. keep the recipes coming please
I made this recipe as a single-layer 9-inch cake yesterday and it was delicious! The cake is lemony with a light, fluffy texture. I ended up only using 1/2 of the frosting because I didn’t want to lose the cake’s flavor in the cloves and cardamom. Overall, the cake is awesome! I’m adding it to my recipe box! Thank you!!
Is it possible to substitute applesauce for the butter in this recipe? Or do I need to keep it?
Hi Kelli!
The applesauce should work although I haven’t tested it with this particular recipe. Let me know how it works out!
Do you have a suggestion for a non-gluten version of this?
It just seems so original and special..
Hi Alison!
I’m sorry I don’t have a gluten free version. I’m not a fan of the “gluten free” flour since it has a metallic taste but you might check out my friend’s website,
livglutenfree.
Her food is amazing, I’ve personally tasted it. She’s a CIA trained chef who has Celiac’s.
Great recipe..Thanks for sharing
I haven’t come across many Grapefruits recipes..this looks yummylicious..
I am gone try this soon:-)
Would really like the nutritional info on your recipes, how come it’s never posted?
Julie, thanks for your inquiry. Nutritional stats are available for members of the Ditch The Diets program. Over the next weeks, we’ll roll out a separate program with just the nutritional stats. If you want, I can email you when it goes live.
Hi there, these look great! I’m going to try them out for my sister’s shower. Just wondering if you can comment on how they freeze (pre-iced of course). thanks
Hey Joanne!
Thanks for writing in! Sure you can freeze these cupcakes. Be sure after you bake them, that they are completely cool. Then store them in a zipper lock bag or air-tight container in the freezer for up to 3 months. They take about 3o minutes to defrost at room temperature and then ice as instructed.
How unique… I’d like to try these.
So I made this recipe this evening and really liked it. Here are the substations that I made and suggestions for future use. I personally really don’t like baking low fat, I feel like what ever you are making loses depth so I used regular unsalted butter instead of the low fat margarine. Also, I soured my own milk as opposed to using buttermilk because I hate buttermilk. It’s really easy and has never failed me. I doubled the grapefruit zest and I think that if the juice had been grapefruit juice concentrate the grapefruit flavor would have been more intense. I think it’s a good idea to use a grape fruit juice concentrate as well because there was a very floury after taste that I didn’t enjoy too much.
In terms of the icing I added some extra sugar, a little milk and butter – half as much as the cream cheese. I think the two are really beautiful together. The cake has a lovely spongy lightness that makes them very enjoyable. I love how the flavors compliment themselves. I do want to work on the floury flavor of the cakes themselves more. Over all, really yummy!
Hi there,
Great recipe!
Do you know where I can find the nutrition facts?
Thanks.