I ran across some talk show the other day and they were talking about making healthy substitutes in your baking. Intrigued, I later did some research on-line and discovered that you do not need to add oil and eggs to a cake mix to still come up with a good cake or cupcake. On the television program, they subsituted a cup of pumpkin for the oil and eggs in a chocolate cake mix. They mentioned you could use just about anything to avoid the extra fat. Eliminating the use of oil and eggs cut the serving size calories down substantially.
I didn't have instant access to canned pumpkin so experimented with my baking. I grabbed a yellow cake mix and substituted the eggs and oil with pureed carrots, apple, and orange zest. The result was a pretty orange cupcake with a very moist crumb, and great flavor. I topped it off with a thin, lemon/orange icing.
Knowing the frequent hunger pains of my family, I also used a chocolate cake mix with canned garbonzo beans! They pureed down very smoothly (I used the liquid, too). I also added cinnamon and 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder. It was dipped in a chocolate/orange icing. I got no complaints even after they learned the secret ingredient! In fact, the garbonzo bean cupcakes turned out to be the favorite!
Although I try and keep everyone's diet on a healthy basis, it was fun to find a snack/dessert that wasn't too horribly bad for you!
I usually prefer to bake my cakes from scratch but when cake mixes are on sale for 88 cents a box, I stock up. They come in handy and there are so many ways to enhance them and produce an excellent cake. You can even make cookies from a cake mix which is fun for children to do as their first baking effort with Mom.
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