Cupcakes are my favorite; they're mini-cakes that can be decorated, devoured, and destroyed individually. If I mess something up on one, I can just eat it and pretend it never happened. Hide the evidence!
I was browsing Pinterest this week (my newest obsession), and I came across a recipe for "Pineapple Bliss Cupcakes." They looked tasty, so I clicked to view the recipe. It took me to a website called skinnytaste.com. The nutrition facts boasted only 140 calories per cupcake WITH icing! And a mere 93 without icing! Not that I'm too interested in calories or counting them, but knowing that a sweet treat is low in calories makes me a little giddy. I decided that these were going to be my experiment this weekend.
What I used:
1 box yellow cake mix (again, I bought whatever was on sale)
20 oz crushed pineapple in juice
For the topping:
3/4 cup marshmallow fluff
8oz reduced fat cream cheese
20 oz crushed pineapple (drained)
a few handfuls of mini-marshmallows
How I did it:
First I preheated the oven to 350 degrees. I lined the cupcake pans with cupcake liners. I decided to do some regular-sized cupcakes and also some mini-cupcakes. Smaller cupcake, fewer calories. A lot of times I'm just looking for a small treat to fulfill my sweet-tooth, and these little poppers are just right!
As the oven was preheating, I mixed the yellow cake mix and the crushed pineapple with a hand mixer. It took about 2 minutes to get the pineapple fully mixed in with the cake mix so that there weren't any big pineapple pieces. The recipe doesn't call for eggs or oil (to keep it low in fat), so I was a little worried about how these cupcakes would rise.
After the mix was well-blended, I filled the lined cupcake pans with the mixture. I put 2-3 scoops into the larger cupcake liners, and I put 1 scoop into the smaller cupcake liners. I ran out of small cupcake liners, so I just sprayed non-stick cooking spray onto the last few cupcake spots.
1 box yellow cake mix (again, I bought whatever was on sale)
20 oz crushed pineapple in juice
For the topping:
3/4 cup marshmallow fluff
8oz reduced fat cream cheese
20 oz crushed pineapple (drained)
a few handfuls of mini-marshmallows
How I did it:
First I preheated the oven to 350 degrees. I lined the cupcake pans with cupcake liners. I decided to do some regular-sized cupcakes and also some mini-cupcakes. Smaller cupcake, fewer calories. A lot of times I'm just looking for a small treat to fulfill my sweet-tooth, and these little poppers are just right!
As the oven was preheating, I mixed the yellow cake mix and the crushed pineapple with a hand mixer. It took about 2 minutes to get the pineapple fully mixed in with the cake mix so that there weren't any big pineapple pieces. The recipe doesn't call for eggs or oil (to keep it low in fat), so I was a little worried about how these cupcakes would rise.
After the mix was well-blended, I filled the lined cupcake pans with the mixture. I put 2-3 scoops into the larger cupcake liners, and I put 1 scoop into the smaller cupcake liners. I ran out of small cupcake liners, so I just sprayed non-stick cooking spray onto the last few cupcake spots.
I placed both cupcake pans in the 350 degree oven. The mini-cupcake pan baked for 15 minutes. The larger cupcake pan baked for 20 minutes. As always, I insert a toothpick into the center of a cake to see if they're done.
This is where the problems started.
My concerns about how the cupcakes would rise were valid. A lot of them fluffed up while they were in the oven, but they fell like spoiled souffle shortly after I took them out. They didn't turn into a sticky mess, but I was still a little disappointed. The cupcakes turned out more spongey than I had hoped. They still taste good though (see how many are missing from the mini-pan?).
Here come more problems.
I let the cupcakes cool completely, and then I started making the whipped topping (icing). I drained the crushed pineapple--or at least I thought I did--so that it wouldn't water down the mixture. I combined the pineapple, marshmallow fluff, and cream cheese with a hand mixer. The mixture looked a little thin, so I added about 1/4 cup more marshmallow fluff. It still looked thin. I added a few handfuls of mini-marshmallows. It looked thicker, so I tried it on a small cupcake. Too runny. I was hesitant to keep adding fluff and extra ingredients because I wanted it stay in the under 150 calorie range, so I hoped that maybe if I let the mixture sit in the fridge for a few minutes, it'd thicken up. It did.
I topped all of the cupcakes with the mixture and placed them in an airtight container in the fridge...after I snapped a few pictures and had a taste test!
Rating:
These cupcakes taste really good, but they're very spongey. Although they are cupcakes--implying that they should be able to be unwrapped and eaten on the go--they require a plate and a fork.
Justin likes them alright. His exact words: "They're okay...they're gooey...not that it's a bad thing."
Will I try this recipe again? Probably not as cupcakes. Maybe as a trifle or a pudding-type dessert. I'd also eliminate the pineapple from the whipped topping and probably stick to just cream cheese and marshmallow fluff.
Recipe adapted from http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/04/pineapple-bliss-cupcakes.html
Great looking pictures...Love the plates!
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