Check Your Portions

The August Recipe Redux theme ‘Bars and Bites for Brown Bags’ really spoke to me more in terms of portion sizes and how we can still have that bite size treat without breaking our overall healthy eating pattern. Over the years portion sizes have grown to double and almost triple in terms of size. Many times people use the terms “portion size” and “serving size” interchangeably. But should we? Portion is the amount of food that you pile on your plate, while serving size is the standard measurement of food, such as a cup or ounce. The easiest way to determine the amount of food in a serving is to measure it. If you eat too little, you could rob your body of the nutrients it needs. And if you eat too much, you could ingest too many calories, and eventually put on weight.

Unfortunately, going out to restaurants/movies, purchasing prepackaged items at the store, or even purchasing cooking utensils have skewed our way of thinking of what a normal portion is. Many educators refer to it as portion distortion. For more information on portions and how they have changed over the years click on the following image.

I decided to make Surprise Lemon Cupcake with Strawberry Frosting in three separate cupcake pans.The baby pan, which is the perfect bite size treat for any lunch box or dinner dessert, held about a tablespoon and a half of batter. The mommy pan, which is the more average size cupcake pan that baking times are given for, held about a third of a cup of batter. And the daddy pan, which is more like your own mini cake and the size that you may pick up at one of those gourmet cupcake shops, was a whooping 3/4 of a cup of batter. Other comparisons of the three sizes of cupcakes included: the difference in nutrient value for each (73 vs 219 vs 328 calories), the amount of time that it took to bake them (12 vs 21 vs 28 minutes), and the amount of frosting used (I found that when I used a narrow spatula and just spread on the frosting I used considerably less than when I piped it on).

 

The following recipe was Originally published as Lemon Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting in Simple & Delicious August/September 2013, p40. A change from the original recipe that I took the liberty to do was add the surprise in the center by not adding the lemon curd to the batter but placing a small amount to the center cupcake before baking. (To be honest I was a bit distracted with texting with my daughter so I missed the step about adding the lemon curd to the batter mix. Come to find out I like the little extra kick from the center surprise.) This was a quick and easy recipe with a light summery flavor and I hope that you enjoy it.