Diet Soda Cake (or Cupcakes)

0 Posted by - November 14, 2012 - Food & Drink

I pretty much don’t bake anything that doesn’t involve a box of cake mix. Baking requires chemistry and weird magical measuring tricks that I can never figure out, so cake mix boxes really increase the likelihood that my baking efforts will succeed.

Enter the Diet Soda Cake, which uses two of my favorite things in the world: a box of cake mix, and Diet Coke.

Image from SkinnyTaste.com

The only tricky thing about this one is the egg whites, but I often manage to separate my yolks with a relatively small amount of trouble– it’s one of the kitchen things that I usually don’t mess up, so I do it whenever possible. (There’s a life lesson for you: If you want to feel super smart, only do stuff you know you’re good at… Jeez, I should write a self-help book, for real.)

Once I mixed it up, the batter looked decent, if a little thin.

Turns out that’s what happens when you don’t put oil or yolk in your cake.

I decided to make these into tiny little muffins instead of a cake because I was having a party with little kids coming and every little kid loves bite-sized cupcakes and I love sending them home to announce to their parents, “I ate FIVE CUPCAKES!” and then watching the following parental apoplectic fit.

The problem? This batter does not behave as normal. Filling the cupcake tins half-full resulted in tiny, sad-looking mini cupcakes. Filling them more than half-full resulted in overflowing messy mini cupcakes. It took be about six tries to get the right amount. (The other problem is that mini cupcake tins hold very little and I had to bake them in like seventeen batches.)

When they were finally done, I had a stack of variously grotesque mini cupcakes. I was too tired to frost them, so I let the kids do it, and that was a big hit.

Then I sent the rest home with the parents. I win at cupcakes. And being an awesome auntie.

  • SonjaPetersonSomerville

    You should totally write a self help book. For real.

  • KpQuePasa

    i make those all the time, but I’ve never put in eggs.  Just the coke and mix.  they’re a different consistency, but sill pretty yummy.

    • http://www.burghertots.com susanvandervort

      I too have only ever made Diet Pop Cake with pop & cake mix…no eggs at all.

  • Ethne Hedren Denham

    Your self help book can be entitled: “The Pintester~ America’s Educator on How Diet Coke and Gin Fix Everything, and Other Life Lessons Including How the ‘squatty potty :) ’ Changes Lives”.

    • pharmd2012

      Ethne Hedren Denham ^Winning.

  • http://thissillygirlslife.com/ ThisSillyGirlsLife

    They don’t look too bad!
    http://ThisSillyGirlsLife.com

  • PamelaGold

    This one time, like a decade ago…I thought I was the coolest person on Earth because I bought this thing called “A cake in a box” (or something like that)…it had everything in that box, including the pan to cook it in. The thing was, it was still the same size as a regular old cake mix box. I didn’t give much thought to that when I brought it home to bake it. The pan was like the size of my hand, and I have freakishly small hands. I don’t know if I was thinking maybe the pan would be one to fold out to create this large sheet cake or something. Whatever. That cake tasted fucking fantastic but my  husband to this day, won’t let me live that shit down.

    • http://www.facebook.com/vmbrannon Vickie Detjen Brannon

      I’m glad I wasn’t the only fool that was shocked when she opened the box of that stuff… Except my mistake was over fudgy brownies.

  • Truffles8761

    Is it chocolate?  Good enough.

  • dminniswhite68

    I’ve never added egg whites…just soda + cake mix…in all different combinations…yellow cake + sprite, chocolate + dr. pepper, strawberry + cherry 7-UP…

    • msmelinda

      dminniswhite68  Just curious, my little guy has a birthday party tomorrow night that I am making cupcakes for.  Will they turn out and be tasty?  I was hoping to use fun fetti cake mix and Sprite.

      • dminniswhite68

        msmelinda dminniswhite68 yes, they will turn out fine. They tend to be a little more moist and light than traditional cupcakes, so you won’t need much icing. I often just dust them with powdered sugar or a thin glaze of icing…you could do a thin tinted powdered sugar icing with more colored sprinkles.

        • PamelaGold

          dminniswhite68 I personally think they suck as cupcakes. They’re so moist that they don’t come out of the cupcake foil in one piece. I bake in a pan that I can serve from. Also? Cool Whip or whipped cream are great because they’re not so sweet like icing.

        • dminniswhite68

          PamelaGold dminniswhite68 I agree they can be challenging. I’ve never had trouble getting them out of silicone or foil liners, only paper liners. If you’re worried, you could spray the inside of the liners with non stick flour spray first. I do use Cool Whip as a topping also… If this is for a party, I would do a test run first. I never try something for a special event that I haven’t done before.

  • AmyMadden

    Ugh, I detest mini cupcake pans! I do not have the patience to bake that long!! I made a cake one day that used pumpkin and cake mix. That was all. I was dubious about how thick the mixture was when I put it in to bake. I really shouldn’t have been surprised when I pulled hot pumpkiny chocolate sludge out of the oven but for some reason I never fail to be shocked that something didn’t work for me when it had *obviously* worked for someone else! Those at least look like they might be tasty :)

    • KpQuePasa

      AmyMadden You might try greasing a *Regular* size muffin tin and mixing a can of (unspiced) pumpkin and a box of spice cake mix – just those two things. It makes for very moist little pumpkin pie cakes.  And I believe they’re WW friendsly (2 or 3 pts a muffin?  I don’t remember)

      • AmyMadden

        KpQuePasa AmyMadden Yes, that was the pumpkin mix I tried (I admit though that I used a regular chocolate cake mix because I live in Australia and spice cake mix does not exist-sadly neither does canned pumpkin so I had to make my own-that could have been the problem too I guess because I have no idea of the texture of canned pumpkin.) Thanks though :)

  • KatherynBeerman

    Slightly off topic, but who the heck thought of adding soda to cake batter?
     I can just picture a woman in her trailer, moo-moo on, curlers in hair,
     ”shoot pa! The darn water’s been cut off again.” 
    a greasy, balding man wearing a yellow stained wife beater tank top and mc hammer pants while sitting in his recliner responds,
    “whatcha want me to do about it?!”
    “Well you can dump your mountain dew in the batter, unless you don’t want your brother-son to get hims his birfday cake this year.”
    and…..scene….

    • PamelaGold

      KatherynBeerman The origin of “Diet Coke Cake” came from Weight Watchers!

    • annoying_pedant

      KatherynBeerman What part of the cow do you use to make a moo-moo? Just the hide or hide plus fur? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muumuu

    • http://www.UnfitParenting.com/ UnfitParent

      KatherynBeerman brother-son lol

  • Consumer13220

    Doesn’t aspartame break down when heated, creating methanol, formaldehyde, and formate? Wait until they tell their moms they ate 5 formaldehyde cupcakes! Auntie’s trying to kill us! Oh the fun of feeding other peoples’ kids!

    • Valleygurlie916

      Consumer13220  oh… we are all dying everyday anyway. It might as well taste good.

  • mollyjothomas

    You are awesome aunt… And you make  many of my days. And fucki’n A, I relay on your wit  and word-smiting(I always thought it was “Word  SMITHING” but the computer says no… and I’ve never been able to spell) to give me perspective, grounding and a shit ton of stress relief!

  • anchesson

    this has nothing to do with your post, but you have this one ad “worse than pink slime?” and a puss-like substance coming from some uncooked meat. it’s keeps showing up. so when i go to post on delicious things i get slammed in the face with peasoup puss coming from some raw assmeat. and now i think i shall hurl.

  • AbigailCrawford

    But did they taste good?

  • Valleygurlie916

    parental apoplectic fit…LMAO. That IS the best part of being an auntie. That and noisy toys.

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  • do it right or not at all

    Well you dont need egg whites. All you need is 1.5 cups of diet soda. Same goes for the white cake or funfetti cakes.