Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Adopted from a friend's recipe


Ingredients:
1 box yellow cake mix
1 can diet sprite
1 package low-fat cream cheese
Strawberry jelly
Cream cheese icing
Strawberries (optional)

I substituted a diet sprite for other ingredients you could mix with the cake, in order to save calories. If you prefer, instead of the diet soda, you could use:
3 eggs
1/3 cup olive oil
½ cup sour cream

1. Mix the cake mix with the diet soda or eggs, olive oil and sour cream.

2. Fill cup holders 1/3 the way full with cake mix

3. Put a ball of cream cheese and a little bit of strawberry jelly in the center of each cupcake


4. Put another layer of cake mix over the cream cheese and jelly (see picture above)

5. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees F for about 8 minutes (check with a toothpick)

6. Cover with cream cheese and add strawberries to the top if you wish.



Nutrition
170 calories
5.8g fat
6mg cholesterol
174mg sodium
28.1g carbohydrates
19.2g sugar
1.3g protein

While the diet soda cupcakes are a little healthier, I think these taste best with the eggs, olive oil and sour cream. I love cream cheese so these are some of my favorite desserts!

Lemon Sugar Cookies

Made from The Food Network Kitchens Cookbook, p. 248

Don't be fooled by the crumbling cookies - they tasted amazing! The Food Network cookbook recipe suggested baking the cookies on parchment paper. Unfortunately, my cookies stuck to the paper, making it hard to peel them off. I tried spraying the second pan of parchment paper w/ PAM and still had the problem of the cookies sticking. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Maybe next time I will just bake them on the cookie pan. Despite the cookies looking like they do, these were a big hit and were gone quickly.

Recipe says it makes 24 cookies, I made closer to 30 - nutrition info assumes 24 cookies.

Nutrition (1 cookie):
147 calories
8.1g fat
37mg cholesterol
58mg sodium
17.2g carbohydrates
9.1g sugar
1.5g protein

PMS Cookies

Named by a family member because they are the perfect mix of sweet and salty. I found these at a holiday party a couple of years ago, so I'm not sure where the recipe originated from.

Ingredients:

Pretzels

Rolos

M&M's (red and green for holidays)

1. Place one layer of pretzels on a plate. Set one rolo on each pretzel, and one M&M on each rolo.

2. Put in microwave for about 25 seconds. As soon as they are done, lightly push on the M&M on top to spread the rolo out over the pretzel.

Nutrition (per 2 cookies):

72 calories

2.9g fat

1.45mg cholesterol

49mg sodium

11.25g carbohydrates

0.6g fiber

8.15g sugar

0.3g protein

These desserts are extremely easy to make and have always been a hit at parties I have taken them to - they disappear right away. You can see in the picture, I mistakenly bought peanut M&M's this time, so I tried a few with those, but I think that plain M&M's work best.