A Junk Food Junkie turned Clemintine Crazy

I hate to admit it, but we are a house full of

Junk Food Junkies.

Straight up snack-a-holics.

Although I'm so not proud to admit that, it's the truth.

I'm trying to be better. It's just so hard when this is staring you in the face.

And trust me, this is light. We had a massive file 13 cleaning a few weeks ago. It was down to left over Easter candy and apparently some Christmas Sweet Tarts that Santa forgot to put in the little one's stockings.

Anyways.

It seemed as though the littlest one in this house had more of an addiction to this crap than any of the rest of us. She got into such a bad habit of opening up this drawer every morning, noon, and night and sneaking a snack. Yes. She is only 22 months old, but very demanding about what SHE wants!

I decided it was time to rid the house of this junk and start anew.

Two things happened.

I decided to start exercising again and I decided to look for a healthy alternative cupcake.

It's funny. 

How come your body decides these things after sitting for 3 days of being sick and not wanting to move a muscle in your body, and when you finally do decide to do something about it (i.e. order a DVD online to be shipped within 10 business days) that by that said 10 business days comes around, earlier said exercise motivation has gracefully left the building.

Well, it's almost here. The DVD that is. I think I've checked FedEx 100 times today to see if they had delivered the package yet. Never mind the fact that I was sitting within 10 feet of my front door and I would have definitly seen the FedEx driver come down my circle driveway, walk up to my door, and ring my door bell.

But what if I missed him while I was taking out the before mentioned cupcakes from the oven?

What if he/she snuck onto our property like the SWAT Team on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation?

Or...What if he/she followed Google Maps for our address and ended up on the other end of our road, knocking on someone elses door that doesn't even know who Jillian Michaels is?

What a tragedy that would be.

(Hold on now I'm paranoid I missed him, I gotta check it just one more time! Nope. Not here yet)

Another funny thing about all of this though, is that today as I was sitting down looking over my favorite pages on Facebook, I noticed a post from

Four Marrs & One Venus

It was a picture of a Jillian Michaels DVD.

What! Someone else is just as crazy as I am?! Someone is going to get their Shred On?!

Yep!

Jen from Four Marrs & One Venus has started a page on Facebook for all of us crazy enough to take this on. If you're interested in joining in, you need to go to her Blog and check it out, she'll get you connected up.

So anyways, back to my littlest one in the house. I decided it was time to get rid of all of this junk food that was within her reach.

So instead of the junk food drawer looking like it did, now it looks like this.

One lonely bag of Cuties. But now, Sophie's favorite snack.

I don't mind her getting into the drawer now and grabbing a snack of her own. And she's finally learned how to peel them all by herself. She is a rather independent little thing.

And now that she has taken on a whole new approach to snacking. It's time to start looking at some new cupcake ideas.

I happened to be searching for something to make for dinner and I went to one of my favorite go to websites Taste of Home.

I remember my mom always getting this magazine when I was a kid. I always thought it was so cool all of the different recipes that were published and how they always hid that little toothpick somewhere in the magazine. I'm still to this day shaking my head at why I could never find that dumb thing. I wonder if it was just a ploy to get readers to look at every page in the book searching for that non-existant ticket to wealth, you know, kind of Willie Wonka Golden Ticket-esq wouldn't you say.

But for me, it's a go-to for a much needed update to the dinner time blah's.

I happened to come across a Clemintine Cupcake recipe.

I thought to myself, this sounds interesting, and I know I have the ingredients. I'll give this one a shot!

I was so excited to see further down in the recipe that it was listed as one of their Light & Tasty recipes.

I'm totally game now!

This recipe turned out really well, although, I think that you could probably make it even better by using a sugar free cake mix as a substitution, and I may just have to give that a try. Not that the whole cupcake will be sugar free, but I'm sure it would save you some grams and some calories.

But for now, we'll stick to it as is. Here's the recipe as written on Taste of Home, with a few little notes added in for good measure.

I hope that you will enjoy this cupcake. I hope that you will join me in the 30 Day Shred along side Jen at Four Marrs & One Venus, and finally I hope that all of us will be able to get the Oompah Loompah song out of our heads!!

Have a great day!!

  

• 1 package (18-1/4 ounces) white cake mix
• 3/4 cup water
• 4 egg whites
• 1/2 cup clementine juice (about 5 clementines)
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon grated clementine peel
• 4 clementines, peeled, sectioned and membrane removed (this was the most difficult thing to do...I ended up 4 clemintines into it, using a small can of mandarin oranges drained instead. They worked just fine! An orange is an orange is an orange right? Well for me it was!)
• FROSTING:
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 3 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon grated clementine peel
• 5 to 6 teaspoons clementine juice
• GARNISH:
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (you could also use dark cocoa candy melts, that's what I had on hand so that's what I used)
• 24 clementine sections with membrane (about 2-1/2 clementines)

 

• In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients; beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Fill paper-lined muffin cups half full. Place one clementine section in the center of each; gently press down into batter. Chop remaining sections; sprinkle over batter.
• Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.
• For frosting, in a small bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the confectioners' sugar, clementine peel and enough juice to achieve spreading consistency. Frost cupcakes.
• In a small microwave-safe bowl, melt chocolate chips; stir until smooth. Dip clementine sections halfway into chocolate; allow excess to drip off. Place on a waxed paper-lined baking sheet; refrigerate until set. Place one on each cupcake. Yield: 2 dozen.

Nutritional Facts 1 cupcake equals 238 calories, 9 g fat (3 g saturated fat), 7 mg cholesterol, 176 mg sodium, 40 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 2 g protein.