Lower Calorie Red Velvet Muffins

I have a major sweet tooth. I consider myself lucky if I can make it through the day without eating at least one sweet thing.  I often think, "I would be so thin if I didn't love sugar so much." But alas, it's not meant to be.  I will never stop eating sugar unless my teeth fall out.

I don't know if you know the famous Hungry Girl, but she cleverly takes pre-packaged foods and makes them into a lower calorie comfort food. Now I'm not a big fan of using pre-packaged junk to make more junk, but this recipe is great for that chocolate fix. Since my favorite time to eat sweets is in the morning, I took her chocolate muffin recipe and altered it using red velvet cake mix.  It turned into a delicious 200 calorie breakfast muffin that is great if you need a daily treat.

Lower Calorie Red Velvet Muffins


Ingredients:

1 box red velvet cake mix
1 15 ounce can pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie puree)
2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method:
Step 1: Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Step 2: Place 12 muffin liners in regular sized muffin pan
Step 3: Mix cake mix, puree and cocoa until it becomes a moist batter (this takes a bit of mixing)
Step 4: Stir in chocolate chips, and add mix to muffin liners
Step 5: Bake 20 minutes. This tastes best the next day