Diet Coke Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

I found these over at Emily Bites who found the frosting over at Gina's Skinny Recipes.  If you haven't discovered their sites yet, they are well worth the look.  Tasty recipes, all with the nutritional information and Weight Watchers Points Plus information on them.   I had heard about the idea of using a cake mix and pop before, but I was skeptical.  I decided the low points plus value (4) was worth the effort. I'm glad I did, they were yummy!

Diet Coke Cupcakes
Ingredients:
1 box of cake mix
1 can of diet pop
2 egg whites

Directions:
1.    Preheat oven per directions on cake mix box
2.    Line cupcake pan with 24 cupcake liners or use cooking spray to lightly coat 24 spots
3.    Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and beat together until thoroughly mixed. Pour mixture into cupcake liners.
4.    Bake according to directions on cake mix box. Let cool completely before frosting.

Yields 24 servings. WW P+: 3 per serving

*for one more P+ you can push a Hershey's Kiss into each cupcake for an extra surprise :)

Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
8 oz light cream cheese
1 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
1.    Combine all ingredients in a bowl and beat with an  electric mixer until smooth

Yields 24 servings. WW P+: 1 per serving

They were a hit with my family, don't you think?

Sugar Cookie Icing

This week my husband and I celebrated our 9th Wedding Anniversary. These cookies were my anniversary gift to him. These are no ordinary cookies. These are our wedding cookies. Cookies were a significant part of our courtship. As such our wedding gift to our guests were these fantastic cookies (you know instead of mints, or whatever other token gift is on the reception place setting). A friend of my mom's (Lori) did all the baking for our wedding. She made these cookies, which my husband declared the best cookies he had ever had. They were 2 sugar cookies, iced and in the middle sticking them together was a little bit of jam.
This past Valentine's Day I made sugar cookies with cookie icing for the first time. Sugar cookies I had made lots before, the icing was new to me. As he ate them he told me that this was it, these were the cookies similar to what was at our wedding. So for our anniversary, I made the cookies, complete with the jam filling as a gift to him. I did the icing here yellow as yellow was our wedding theme colour.
Here is the recipe for Sugar Cookie Icing. It is so easy to make. I recommend putting the icing on with a butter knife or icing spreader, I found a pastry brush was too tricky to get the icing to spread just right.

1 cup icing sugar
2 teaspoons milk
2 teaspoons light corn syrup*
1/4 teaspoon almond extract**
assorted food coloring

*Can use honey or maple syrup in place of corn syrup
**Can use any flavor extract, I used vanilla

In a small bowl, stir together icing sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup.
Divide into separate bowls, and add food colorings to each to desired intensity. Dip cookies, or paint them with a brush (or spread with a butter knife).