Chocolate Glazed Chocolate {Pumpkin} Cupcakes

For my mom's birthday I wanted to make her some cupcakes.... But she's trying to be healthy too, so I didn't want to ruin her whole day.  Here's what I came up with....

One of my friends on MyFitnessPal mentioned that she made chocolate cupcakes with just cake mix and a can of pumpkin.  WHAT?!  This is right up my alley!!  So I perused the internet - and it's true.  This does work.  Then I found a recipe for frosting that I could tweak a bit - which really turned out to be more of a glaze.... and here we go!

For cake:

2/3 can 100% canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

Duncan Hines Devil's Food Cake Mix

1 scoop vanilla protein powder (I used Body Fortress)

1 scoop chocolate protein powder (I used Body Fortress)

water

For glaze:

2 cups confectioners sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup light/low sodium butter (I used Smart Balance) - take this out of the fridge about an hour before you are going to use it so it can soften

3-5 tbsp unsweetened coconut milk

2tbsp cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 325. (Or higher depending on what kind of tin you're using - see cake mix packaging)

In large bowl, mix canned pumpkin, cake mix, protein powder and a little water (only as much as you need to make it more mixable).  It should form a thick batter consistency.

Line cupcake tin with liners - you can make regular cupcakes or mini -- mini would make around 6-, regular would make around 30.

Spoon batter into liners. For regular size cupcakes, fill about 2/3 full.  For mini cupcakes just put about a spoonful in each liner.

Follow baking instructions for the cake mix -- I used a dark metal tin and each batch took 18 minutes to cook.

Let cupcakes cool completely.

For glaze:

In large bowl, cream butter, sugar, & vanilla. Add in cocoa powder, and coconut milk 1tbsp at a time.  Beat until fluffy.   If too sweet, add more milk.  I ended up using about 1/5 cup coconut milk to cut the sweetness.

I refrigerated the icing for about half an hour before frosting the cupcakes. 

Then I put it into a zip loc baggie, cut the corner off, and squeezed a small amount onto each cupcake. 

Refrigerate cupcakes.

Serving =

1 regular iced cupcake or 2 iced mini cupcakes.

109 Calories

3g Fat

18g Carbs

1g Fiber

3g Protein

130mg Sodium