A Forgotten Recipe and A Random Tip

Last night, I decided to use up some cake mix that was 3 months off of expiring, so I made two types of cupcakes: Diet Coke Cakes for me (and *B* if he wanted some) and regular cupcakes (for *B* and work). I present a study in cakes:

Standard cake making supplies when using a box mix

Smooth batter with few lumps

Evenly filled cups

Beautifully baked cupcakes!

The only ingredients you need for diet coke (pepsi) cake

Lumpy batter comes from not overbeating the mix. If you overbeat, they will not rise.

Again, lumpy batter. A normal cake mix makes 24 cupcakes. This makes 18.

A little lumpy, but definitely cupcake-like.

When iced, no one can see the difference!

When you eat the diet coke cake though, it is not quite as moist and it has much bigger air bubbles. While these are iced with homemade butter cream icing (yum!), you can ice the cakes with cool whip to make it even lighter. Believe it or not, I took both types to work, and the diet coke cupcakes disappeared while the regular cupcakes were still there when I left. Everyone was raving about them! It is more than a happy substitute for those like me who are watching their waistline.

Speaking of watching waistlines, I decided to start over today. Given that it's a) a Monday and b) March 1st, I knew I had to get serious. I went to the gym first thing this morning. I am feeling good!

And as promised, a random tip that I keep forgetting to post. Every now and then, I buy a different kind of shampoo. Either I want to try something new, or it was on sale, but I usually end up not loving it. What I've learned to do is either reuse old bottles or pick up empty travel size shampoo bottles and fill them with this still-good but less-than-amazing shampoo. I either use them as guest shampoos, gym shampoos, or 72-hour-kit supplies. As they say, waste not, want not.