The 75 calorie cupcake!

I have been making so many cupcakes lately, that it seems my jeans are a bit more snug than I would like! My goal today was to create a low-calorie, yet delicious cupcake for a guilt-free indulgence.

I scoured the internet for substitutions to regular ingredients, but struggled to cut the calories from the flour and butter. There are 400 calories per cup of flour, and most recipes call for about 2 cups, that’s 800 calories right there. Then there’s the butter with 100 cals per tablespoon, which adds up to 800 calories per stick, with 1 ½ to 2 sticks per recipe! You can be up to 100 calories per cupcake with just the flour and butter, not to mention the sugar and rest of ingredients!

Then I decided that the best route was not to start substituting ingredients from a recipe I know, but to search for a recipe designed to be low-cal. That’s when I found this recipe from Grin and Bake it, and this recipe from Splenda. Naturally, that came out to be too many calories for my liking so I started substituting things again.

Diet Soda Cupcakes (modified from Grin and Bake it)

• 1 box Pillsbury sugar-free devil’s food cake mix - 1440 cals (I didn’t even know this existed until I stumbled upon it at Schnucks) 
• 1 12 oz. can Diet Coke - 0 cals 
• 2 egg whites (or 1/3 cup of liquid whites) - 32 cals 

Total Cals: 1472 ÷ 24 cupcakes = 61.33 cals per cupcake

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Add the cake mix and eggs whites in a mixing bowl. 
3. Pour in the can of Diet Coke. Beat until smooth. 
4. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

The cupcakes turned out very light and fluffy. They did stick to the liners quite a bit, but storing them in the fridge for a few hours loosened them up.

Fluffy White Icing (modified from the Splenda website)

• 2 large egg whites (or 1/3 cup liquid whites) - 32 cals 
• 3/4 cup DiabetiSweet - 320 cals (The recipe called for Splenda Baking Blend, but that would have been 720 calories and I had excess DiabetiSweet, so I decided to save some more calories there!) 
• 1/3 cup water - 0 cals 
• 3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract - 0 cals (if you use high quality vanilla with no sugar or additives there will be zero calories) 
• 1 pinch of salt - 0 cals 

Total Cals: 352 ÷ 32 cupcakes = 11 cals per cupcake (the icing made enough to frost about 32 cupcakes)

1. In the metal bowl of an electric mixer, briefly whisk together egg whites, DiabetiSweet, water, vanilla, and salt. 
2. Set bowl over saucepan of gently simmering water and whisk gently until mixture reaches 160 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer.  Remove from heat and, using the whisk attachment on your mixer, whip icing on medium speed about 5-7 minutes, or until icing increases in volume and cools. 
3. Use a plain piping bag with the tip cut off to pipe these, the icing is not stiff enough to hold the shape of a tip. 

Total per Cupcake: 61.33
Total Icing per Cupcake: 11
Total Cals per Cupcake: 72.33 (Now that I’d call a guilt-free cupcake!!) 

You couldn’t tell that these were low-calorie cupcakes! They are delicious, and also happened to be completely sugar-free!