Monday Morning Mmmm: Lemon Drop Cupcakes

Today’s Monday Morning Mmmm is from my good friend Jessie. I just spent the past few days rooming with her at Blissdom and while yes, it was essentially a grown-up slumber party and lots of fun, I must say: I wish she’d brought me one of these cupcakes! Please welcome Jessie – and her easy, yummy recipe!

I’m sure by now we all know Pinterest is both a blessing and a curse. I really have done more crafts and tried more new recipes due to having a visual bookmarking system. But I also get those images stuck in my brain and I just can’t seem to get them out. A cute decorating idea can fly out of my head quicker than a wasp, but a picture of a dazzling cupcake has me hooked.

So I had to settle for an easy recipe I found on another site. I made two dozen of these for the high-school boys we “dorm parent,” and they disappeared extremely quickly. (Of course, they are high-school boys. So you might take that with a grain of salt.) The simple recipe takes almost no time to prepare, so I think these will be a go-to recipe of mine for feeding the boys or taking to a party. And they can be made very low-cal as well!
 

Lemon Cupcakes with Light Lemony Frosting

Adapted from Dashing Dish

Cake:
1 box lemon cake mix
12 ounces lemon-lime soda

Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin tins with cupcake papers. Mix cake mix and soda together until all is incorporated and there are no lumps. Fill papers about halfway full. Bake 18-20 minutes. Let cool completely.

Frosting:
8 oz. Cool Whip
one 8-oz. package instant lemon pudding mix
juice of half a lemon
1/2 cup milk

Fold pudding mix and lemon juice into Cool Whip and beat until creamy. Add milk and stir until uniform. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

Pipe frosting onto cupcakes. Add sprinkles and fresh lemon zest if desired.

For “diet” cupcakes, use a sugar-free vanilla cake mix, diet soda, light or “free” Cool Whip, sugar-free pudding mix, and skim milk. With all of those modifications, the cupcakes come in at just 85 calories apiece!

Do tell: do you actually make any of the recipes you Pin?

Jessie is a stay-at-home mom of two little ones in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She writes about food, faith, and trying not to go insane at Vanderbilt Wife.