The Pirate House!

About a month ago (I know I suck at blogging) we got to go stay in the Pirate House in Vegas (well near Vegas, its actually in Boulder City). Anyways, it was amazing! It was basically like staying at a Pirates of the Caribbean waterpark!! There were 21 rooms, 2 waterslides, 5 pools, a few hot tubs, a couple kitchens....it was INSANE! There were ships to jump from into the pool, hammocks everywhere and flat screen TV's EVERYWHERE! And they had some of the same set ups that they have on the Pirates of the Caribbean Disneylad ride. So there were pirates and skeletons and stuff all over the place. We were so lucky to be able to stay there! I have TONS of pictures of it so here are a bunch!

Diet Coke Cupcakes?

Is it true? could it be?


Diet coke cupcakes??


Really??


Yes it is true! And the even better part is that they are low calorie (well lower than normal!)



So the other day while I was at my place of employment we were discussing my co-workers (Lara...aka my kbff) birthday that was coming up. It was decided that I would make cupcakes to bring to work. Thats when Brian piped in and asked if we had ever had diet coke cake. Diet coke cake? Why no, I have never heard of it. Well Brian and his wife have lost weight and continue to lose weight. His wife was on The Biggest Loser a few years back. She was the one from Utah that made it to the finale, but was pregnant so she couldn't win. Anyways they are eating healthy and made a cake where they replaced the fatty oil and eggs and stuff with diet coke! I looked it up online and decided to try it! It is actually a weight watchers recipe. Anyways, its a really tough recipe. I don't know if you'll be able to make it unless you're an amazing cook like me. So here it is...

1 cake mix
1 can of diet coke (10-12 oz)
Mix it together and back like normal.

Yep thats it!! You don't add any other oil or eggs or water or anything! Just diet coke! I read somewhere that a whole can of diet coke (12 oz) was a little too much. So I did about 10-11 oz. I made the cupcakes the night before I brought them to work. After I mixed up the batter I tasted it. It tasted a little diet coke-ish but pretty good. I made the cupcakes and cooked them. they turned out pretty good except for they were a little flatter than usual but overall looked like normal cupcakes! I made homemade chocolate frosting (which is amazing by the way) to go on top of them. I was a little scared to take them to work because I hadn't tried them yet so I wasn't sure how they were. My kbff and I took a bite and they were AMAZING!!!




Seriously, they were so so so good! They are soooo moist! I think even more moist than regular cupcakes! All in all I thought it was a big success! Then as the day went on and the cupcakes settled in my tummmy, a little rumbling started to occur and I started getting stomach pains. Thats when I remembered that I had this little problem called phenylketoneuric (thank you amber for finding out the official name!). Considering most of you (or all) don't know what that is, let me explain! Phenylketoneuric is when you have a bad reaction to the artificial sweetners they put in place of sugar. So whenever I eat anything sugar free it makes me sick....including diet coke apparently! I haven't had soda since 9th grade so I guess I didn't really think that putting diet coke in a cake mix would make me sick! Well the night I mixed up the batter I ate a lot of the dough (not much of a surprise if you know me very well). That night I was up until 3:30 to 4:00 in the morning with stomach cramps, and well, lets just say it--some heinous gas! I didn't think that the cake batter could have caused this trauma but apparently it did! My amazing diet coke cupcakes make me sick! Does that make me not want to eat them? Nope! It just makes it easier for me to rid myself of the calories =) he he he....(Plus the actually cake batter made me sicker than the cupcakes. I think most of the soda, if not all, gets cooked out in the oven)


By the way, if you are trying to keep them even more low calorie then use lite or fat free cool whip for the frosting instead of regular frosting. And I read somewhere else to not cook the cake as long as you usually would. Cook it about 5 minutes shorter. I tried that but then ended up cooking my cupcakes as long as you usually would. Maybe its different with cakes? I don't know! Let me know if you try this recipe though!


P.S. We were bored at work which is why this blog has pictures that tells that story!