Week 32 Cupcakes - Skinny Chocolate

I've seen one version or another of this cupcake recipe floating around on Pinterested since I joined but I was always a little scared to try them.  I mean seriously - a mix and diet coke?  How can that possibly edible?  When I stumbled on this recipe from one of my favorite and most reliable food blogs I decided to give it a try.  The time and effort was minimal, cake mix was on sale and I always have Diet Coke on hand so even it did go terribly wrong it wouldn't be a big was of time and expense.

1. Source: Six Sister's Stuff

2. Ease of Recipe (1 being cake mix/canned icing - 5 tons of steps and very time consuming): 1.5.  A little more stirring than cake mix/canned icing but that's about all the difference.

3. Changes Made:  For whatever reason my grocery store was sold out of Cookies and Cream pudding mix so I used white chocolate instead.

4. Problems:  The pudding mix and Cool Whip didn't go together very easily.  Next time I think I would use a hand mixer instead of just a whisk.

5.  Overall Impression:  The cake is light and fluffy with a good chocolatey flavor and none of the weird "diet" flavor or aftertaste that I was afraid of.  Mine stuck to the liner a little more than I like but not so much that I lost 3/4 of the cake which I've had happen before.  It tastes like a good chocolate cupcake.  My mind is still a little blown.  I didn't love the frosting as much.  The Cool Whip and the pudding turned a little gummy.  I don't know if it was because of my pudding choice or because I didn't whip it enough.  I'll probably try it again with a hand mixer but with as low calorie as the cake is I think I could probably just use of the whipped frostings in the freezer section and still have a low calorie cupcake.

6. Quantity:  20 - I always come up a little short

7. Make Again?: Definitely though I may do something different with the frosting.