A Health-Nut Mom Makes Mountain Dew Cupcakes

Last Sunday I posted about the delicious and healthy whole wheat oatmeal blueberry muffins that I baked. They only lasted a few days because the kids - and me - scarfed them down. As I offered to share my baked goodies with those around me, a few people asked why I'd ruin a good muffin with healthy ingredients?

Some people have accused me of being a health nut - absolutely not true. I try to eat a mostly vegetarian diet but I'm not extreme or super strict about it. And some have accused me of not letting my kids have "good" food - again, absolutely not true. Just because my kids have never had Spaghettio's doesn't make them deprived!

Today, I did my usual pre-cooking for the week. I made a big pan of roast vegetables, four servings of steel cut oatmeal, quinoa, and a pot of Buddha's delight. I'll eat off all that this week when I get home in the evenings after teaching.

When I was planning my menu for the week, I mentioned I was also going to make root beer cupcakes. I found the recipe in the Happy Herbivore cookbook. I figured it might be a neat way to sneak in a vegan dessert on the kids!

Well, my kids don't really like root beer, so the oldest instead asked for Mountain Dew cupcakes.

I do NOT recommend drinking or
baking with this soda.

Mountain Dew cupcakes?

I googled and sure enough such a recipe exists. Now, being the health nut that I am (not), I don't allow my kids to drink soda. However, as the older ones have reached their teen years they are less under my control and unfortunately know all about Mountain Dew.

Now the really funny thing is, this Mountain Dew cupcake recipe says it makes "lite cupcakes" because it omits the eggs and oil. I guess us health nuts have a different version of "lite" because I would never consider 7 cups of powdered sugar to be lite!

Anyway, wanting to be a cool mom, I made the cupcakes. I don't drink Mountain Dew and I didn't try the cupcakes so I can't personally vouch for how good (or bad) they are. However, they smell so sickeningly sweet that the smell alone gave me a headache.

And the best part -- my kids don't love them! Even the oldest Mountain Dew guzzling teen said they were "OK, but too sweet."

I'm considering it a personal victory that just maybe some of my health nuttiness will rub off on them after all.

For those who want to give it a try, here is the Mountain Dew cupcake recipe:

Combine a yellow cake mix with 12 oz Mountain Dew. Bake according to package directions.

To make the frosting, beat 2 sticks butter, 1/4 tsp each vanilla extract and lemon extract. Blend in 7 cups* powdered sugar. We tinted our frosting with green food coloring.

* I'm thinking the recipe I used possibly had a misprint. 7 cups of powdered sugar is crazy! And it made enough frosting for three times the amount of cupcakes we had. So you could easily cut the powdered sugar down if you also have health nut tendencies.