Rudolph the Red Velvet Cupcakes

Here is another festive holiday treat that I made last night......Rudolph the Red Velvet Cupcakes!

(They turned out so well that I thought I would share the recipe and nutritional content with you below!)

I saw the recipe on Skinnytaste.com and I fell in LOVE with how cute they were so I decided to give it a shot. Some of the "Reindeer" don't look as good as the others but after working on them for over 3 hours.......when 11:00pm hit, my motivation for having them "look good" was quickly wiped!

(ps......please disregard the skull on the tray.....it's the ONLY one that I could find while searching everywhere and it's a Halloween one. LOL Could be a gift idea for me??? (hint hint)

They are super easy, I used a box of red velvet cake mix, fat free Chobani yogurt, egg whites and water. Does it get easier than that? You can use any flavored cake mix... chocolate, butter, devil's food cake, etc. as long as your boxed cake mix is 18.25 oz.

Rudolph the Red Velvet Cupcake

Servings: 24 • Size: 1 cupcake • Old Points: 3 pts • Points+: 5 pts

Calories: 169.3 • Fat: 3.5 g • Carb: 32.5 g • Fiber: 1.4 g • Protein: 2.8 g • Sugar: 22.4 g

Sodium: 309.4 mg

Cupcake and glaze only (no candy, pretzel or cookie): Old Points: 3 pts • Points+: 4 pts

Calories: 132.3 • Fat: 2.4 g • Carb: 26.3 g • Fiber: 1.2 g • Protein: 2.3 g • Sugar: 19.7 g

Sodium: 251 mg

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:

18.25 oz Duncan Hines Red Velvet Cake mix

6 oz fat-free Chobani Greek yogurt

1 1/3 cups water

2 large egg whites

For the chocolate glaze:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

3 tbsp fat-free milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

pinch of salt

For the vanilla glaze:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/8 tsp clear vanilla extract

1 - 2 tsp fat free milk

For the face:

24 low fat small vanilla wafers

72 m&m's, 24 red, 48 brown

12 pretzels, broken in half to create ears

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Line cupcake tins with liners.

Combine all the cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat until combined. Pour into prepared liners. Bake about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool before frosting.

Make the chocolate glaze: whisk all the ingredients in a medium bowl. Keep the chocolate glaze in the bowl.

Make the vanilla glaze by whisking all the vanilla glaze ingredients in another bowl. Place vanilla glaze in a piping bag.

To assemble the cupcakes, dip the tops of the cupcakes into the chocolate glaze and quickly press the vanilla wafer onto the bottom of each cupcake. The chocolate glaze will dry fast so you want to make a few

 at a time. Let the glaze harden at least 5 to 10 minutes.

Using the vanilla glaze, pipe 2 circles for the eyes and press the chocolate m&m's into the glaze. Pipe the vanilla glaze for the nose and press the red m&m onto the nose.

Then insert pretzel pieces for the ears and they are complete.

(I had to use vanilla glaze on the pretzel pieces for them to stick)