When Alanna sent me a note to let me know about a Lifehacker post on making low-fat cupcakes, I knew I would have to give it a try out of sheer curiosity. After all, Lifehacker is not exactly a food oriented site and to take a break from their regularly scheduled content to mention cooking seemed to be a sign that their technique was worth trying. Notice that I said technique and not recipe.

These light cupcakes are sort of a food hack (or a diet hack) using two ingredients: cake mix and diet soda. If you're not curious, or are so put off by the ingredients that you don't want to hear how the cupcakes turned out, you may as well stop now. Otherwise, read on...

Basically, the way that the cupcakes work is that you replace all the wet ingredients normally called for by a boxed cake mix with one can (1 1/2 cups) of diet soda. I used a Betty Crocker Super Moist Yellow Cake Mix and a can of Diet 7-Up to make my test batch and followed the baking directions for cupcakes on the box. As strange as the ingredients sound, the cupcakes actually tasted surprisingly good. They were very light, moist and unbelievably very tender, since they lacked the binding power that eggs normally contribute to a cake. I used a simple glaze of powdered sugar, vanilla extract and a few tablespoons of milk to make the frosting.

Any kind of diet soda and any standard cake mix should work, though you'll want to try to match up the flavors for the best results. Diet Sprite or 7-Up would work well with a Lemon or White cake mix, Diet Coke would probably turn out a good chocolate cake and Diet Root Beer would add little something extra to a Spice Cake mix. The cake is not really stable enough to hold up to something larger than a cupcake size, so stick with individual desserts if you're going to try this trick.

I'm not saying that I would abandon any of my "real" cake recipes to make these cupcakes, but if a weight-watching friend was coming over for dessert, I would definitely consider making them again, perhaps pairing a white cake version with some balsamic vinegar-marinated strawberries for a light variation on strawberry shortcake.