Have your (Skinny) Cupcake and Eat It Too

Cupcakes. We all love them. But I was told that a Sprinkles cupcake contains 400 calories (after google-ing, supposedly the Sprinkles red velvet has 497 calories, but the strawberry only has 131 calories).

The "skinny" cupcakes at Santa Monica's 17th Street Cafe & Bakery only have 100 calories each and are fat free. Instead of oil, they use apple and apricot concentrate.

Their flavor selection is standard but has enough for everyone: red velvet, chocolate, lemon, carrot cake, vanilla. the red velvet comes either with fondant or (fat free) cream cheese frosting.

As with all fat free desserts, we worried about whether the cupcakes would be too bland or dry. Fortunately this wasn't really the case. Our favorites were easily the red velvet and the carrot cake since they were the most moist. It was also because we all liked the cream cheese frosting better than the fondant.
Granted, it isn't a Sprinkles red velvet but for me it is more than enough to satisfy my sweet tooth and for the same calorie intake, you can eat five of these! You shouldn't, of course, that would sorta defeat the purpose.

If you want to try out the cupcakes, DealPop is currently running a deal for this place: $7 for $15 worth of baked goods, which will end midnight tomorrow so you have about 32 hours.

PS. This cafe also serves chrysanthemum tea with whole flowers. That was a first for me at a non-Asian restaurant.


17th Street Cafe & Bakery
1610 Montana Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90403
(310) 453-2771
www.seventeenthstreetcafe.com


Disclosure: I came for a free cupcake tasting as a guest of 17th Street Cafe & Bakery.