"Dad"cakes

Don’t tell Dad, but the wheat flour, wheat germ, and yoghurt in this recipe make the cupcakes … not health food certainly, but at least not quite so bad for Dad.

Ingredients
cupcakes
1 c. white flour
½ c. wheat flour
1 T wheat germ
½ c. cocoa powder
1/3 c. sugar
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
2 eggs
2/3 c. milk
2/3 c. oil
2/3 c. plain low-fat yoghurt
1 t. vanilla
frosting
¼ c. natural peanut butter (containing peanuts only)
1/3 c. butter (softened)
1 to 1 ¼ cup powdered sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
mini M&M’s

Method
Preheat oven 350 F. Line 2 cupcake pans (for 24 cupcakes) with liners, or grease and flour. I had better luck with metallic liners than with paper.
In a large bowl mix or whisk together dry ingredients for cupcakes. In a separate bowl, beat eggs. Add milk and oil; beat again. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture. Add the egg mixture, and mix or beat until smooth. Add the yoghurt and vanilla and stir until thoroughly mixed.
Drop dough by scant ¼-cupfuls into the cupcake pans. (1/4 cupful should fill each cupcake liner about 2/3 full.) Bake at 350 F for 19 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan 5 minutes. Carefully transfer cupcakes to cooling racks and cool completely before frosting.
For frosting, cream together peanut butter and softened butter. Add powdered sugar ¼ cupful at a time until you get a stiff, spreadable frosting. I ended up adding a total of 1 ¼ cups of powdered sugar, and it made more frosting than I needed for the cakes.
Frost cakes with the peanut butter frosting. Decorate with mini M&M’s in the colors of your choice (yellow does not look very good). In the States, you can buy M&Ms in just one or two colors at some candy or party stores. Or get a child to help you go through the bag and sort the M&Ms into color piles. Even with mini M&Ms, the cupcakes were not big enough to allow me to spell out “Dad.” But you can put Dad’s initial, or a heart or design as shown.

Serve immediately or store in the fridge for up to 24 hours before the frosting begins to melt and the M&Ms begin to bleed.