Low cal cupcakes

I am sure everyone has seen this recipe on pinterest, but I tried it today and it is really good! So I wanted to add it to my blog as a "tried and true" recipe. It is a great way to feel like you are cheating without consuming a ton of calories. I made strawberry cupcakes, but you can make any flavor cake mix you like. Make sure you check the box and break down your calories yourself because it will most likely vary from box to box. Also you can use diet soda, but I just cannot do it. I hate the taste and the stuff that is in diet soda is just plain scary. So I didn't use diet. You can also use lite cool whip, but I didn't this time. Plus using the regular cool whip and the regular soda added 10 calories per cupcake.. so not a significant difference. I also used Sierra Mist because the ingredients list is a lot less frightening than that on the other brands. (I mean... it IS soda.. but ya know..) 

Lo-cal cupcakes

From: Pinterest

Any flavor cake mix you like
2 cups (16 oz.) lemon lime soda (sprite, 7up, sierra mist..) 
cool whip

Combine cake mix and soda and beat with mixer. Pour into greased cupcake pan and bake as directed on cake mix box. Once cooled "ice" with cool whip. 


You can garnish with fruit such as a slice of strawberry if you are making strawberry flavor, lemon zest if lemon flavor.. you get the idea. This made 24 cupcakes for me, and this is how the calories broke down in my case- 

cake mix- 1,700 calories for entire box
Soda- 140 calories for 16 oz. 
Cool whip- a 2T dollop on top (which is a lot) is 25 calories. 
Total calories- 1,840 (minus coolwhip) 
divided by 24 cupcakes- 77 calories, plus cool whip is 102 calories total. 

If you used zero calorie diet soda that would make them 95 calories (with cool whip) and if you used lite cool whip it would be (if memory serves me..) 92.