Banana Cupcakes

makes about 12 cupcakes

Worried about the freshman fifteen, yet still want a yummy treat? These banana cupcakes are just the thing! They are an easy way to incorporate fruit into your diet while still eating a treat. There is no butter in this recipe and only a minimal amount of sugar. I always make these cupcakes when I have an overly ripe banana; I often take a banana from my dining hall but sometimes forget to eat it. To avoid the guilt of wasting food by throwing away my banana, I use it to make these cupcakes. If I have nuts or chocolate chips on hand, I toss a few into the batter to add some extra flavor and texture.

Banana Cupcakes

Ingredients:
3 c. flour
1 c. sugar

1 tbsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp nutmeg
3 mashed bananas
1 tbsp oil

1c. & 2 tbsp milk

Instructions:
In a medium size bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, & nutmeg. To this mixture slowly add the vanilla, oil, milk, and bananas. Mix together until just combined. It is ok to have a few lumps in the batter. Grease a pan or line a cupcake tin and bake in the oven for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

* frosting often requires an electric mixer to make, so I just stick to canned frosting.

Applesauce Cookies

At the end of the fall quarter, everyone was scrambling to use up their perishable food before going home for the winter break. My friend practically lives off of applesauce and had two large jars of it with only a few days left before break. Since we had both already finished our finals, we spent our time searching for ways to use the applesauce and stumbled across this delicious and healthy recipe. Applesauce is an unusual baking ingredient and we were hesitant about using it, but these cookies were absolutely amazing! They are moist, dense, and cakey. For fun, we decided to jazz them up a bit and melted some canned frosting in the microwave and drizzled it over the top. This recipe made a lot of cookies, so we went to everyone's room and gave them a much needed treat while they studied for finals.

makes 24 cookies

Ingredients:

1 c. applesauce

1/2 c. butter

1/2 c. sugar

1 egg

2 c. flour

1 c. raisins (optional)

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

Instructions:

In a bowl, thoroughly combine all ingredients. Then drop equal sized spoonfuls onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.