Cupcakes with Sparkling Water?

Tweet this! [Before you write this post off as boring, here's a SPOILER:  I made 60 calorie cupcakes today using sparkling water and they were freaking delicious.  And beautiful.  Okay, now read on...]

Have you ever heard of diet coke cakes (or diet coke cupcakes)?  You can substitute diet soda for the eggs, oil, and butter in a cake.  Sounds like a horrible idea?  It actually works.  Google the phrase "diet coke cake" and you will get this:

See?  Everybody's doing it.  "Go ahead and jump off a cliff, why don'tcha?" Okay, but, in all honesty, I'm not convinced that cooking with diet soda is entirely healthy.  Diet soda on its own has some scary health negatives, and I have no idea what baking may do to it.

So this morning, I had an idea:  If diet soda works, would sparkling water? 

• Why it might work:  if diet soda cakes are successful because of the carbonation (which sparkling water has)
• Why it might epic fail: if diet soda cakes are successful because of the syrup (which sparkling water has not)

Sounds like an experiment to me!  "Science rules!" Thanks, Bill Nye.

The verdict?  Ding ding ding, we have a winner!  Not only are these things beautiful, but they actually taste good!

They started out like this...

    

But I decided to melt some almond bark to lop onto a few of them for extra crunchiness (and because these babies are only 60 calories cooked, no joke).  So then they looked like this...

And no, they are not all that pretty.  Here are some of the less beautiful ones (because I had no idea if this would epic fail and thus couldn't bring myself to use all of my pretty cupcake papers)...

What you need:

    

• 1 can of Sparkling Water (I used La Croix)
• 1 box of Sugar Free cake

What ya gots ta do:

Seriously, this is the easiest cupcake mix in the history of the world...

1. Put the cake mix in the bowl.
2. Pour the whole can of sparkling water in
3. Mix
4. Bake according to directions on cake box

Okay, now who wants to lick the bowl? ;-)

Red, White, and Blue-berry Overnight French Toast

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Like your typical 22 year old Millennial, I'm quite a fan of instant feedback and quick gratification.  So I generally stay away from recipes that take a long time to bake.  Not sure if this breaks that rule - it really only takes 5 minutes to prepare, but here's the catch: you have to do it the night before.  So, the night before Memorial Day, I decided to take a crack at it - and to find a way to make it red, white, and blue because I'm a sucker for themes.

I found this original recipe online through Pinterest.  Naturally, I didn't love the amount of bread, egg, and cream cheese that was used - so I changed the recipe a bit to fit to make it healthier less unhealthy. Don't worry - the taste did not suffer.

My dad was the ultimate test on this one.  Why?  Because he generally won't consume a meal that does not include a substantial amount of meat and calls a lot of my healthy recipes "rabbit food".  What was the verdict?  Let me say this: every single plate in my house was cleared.  People were stuffed to the brim.  There was groaning out of fullness.  And all was good.

Here's the recipe...