This urge came to me about two months ago when I decided I wanted to make Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes. I saw the recipe and what it entailed, everything I enjoy; chocolate, chocolate chips, and chocolate chip cookie dough. How could I go wrong?
The only problem was, I had really never made such a fancy cupcake. The picture made it look like it was from "The Cup" or "Jilly's", you know the fancy cupcake places.
Look....
...not something I thought I could accomplish, but I was up for the challenge.
By the way, I make this sound like I'm about to run a marathon. Pretty funny considering the word running is not really in my vocabulary.
The cupcakes required quite a few ingredients that I didn't already have at home. I realized upon reading the ingredients, that for the small cookies and the dough in the middle of the cupcakes, instead of making homemade cookies I just bought the Nestle pre-made cookie dough (yeah, that might be cheating, but it saved me a little time).
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes
Cupcakes
1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon instant espresso granules I did not use these, and it still tasted delicious
1/2 cup warm water
Frosting
3 sticks unsalted butter, softened
pinch of fine grain sea salt
1 tablespoon clear vanilla extract
2 pounds confectioners’ sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream or milk
and don't forget....pre-made chocolate chip cookie dough (whatever is on sale).
How to make them:
For cupcakes...
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tin with paper liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, beaten eggs, and vanilla. In a small bowl, combine instant espresso granules and warm water, stirring until dissolved. Add espresso mixture to the cake batter and stir until fully incorporated.
3. Using a large cookie scoop, distribute the batter between 24 muffin wells; about 3 tablespoons of batter per well. Cover the bottom of the muffin cup; enough so that you can put the rolled cookie dough in each cupcake.
4. Measure .4 ounce balls of cookie dough (about 1 teaspoon) and drop a ball of dough into each cupcake. Be sure to use a spoon to completely cover the dough ball with batter.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick entered into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
6. Remove cupcakes from muffin tins and allow to fully cool on a wire rack. Once cupcakes are cool, prepare your frosting.
Take the remaining cookie dough and make small cookies out of it, for the garnish on the cupcakes. Bake according to the package.
For frosting...
1. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter until fluffy. Slowly add in confectioner’s sugar, and continue creaming until well blended.
2. Add salt, vanilla, and 3 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk. Blend on low speed until moistened. Add an additional 1 to 3 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk until you reach the desired consistency. Beat at high speed until frosting is smooth and fluffy.
After the baking and mixing...
Once your cupcakes are cooled, put the frosting into a plastic bag, so you can pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes. If you have a pastry bag, it would probably work better, but I managed just fine with a plastic bag with a snipped off end on one corner.
Pipe the frosting onto each cupcake, and then roll the cupcakes in the mini chocolate chips. Once each cupcake is completely frosted and rolled in the mini chocolate chips, take the small cookies you made and place one on each cupcake.
Putting the small cookies and mini chocolate chips make the cupcake, so you have to do that part.
Chris took quite a few of these to work, and I can say it's probably one of the few times I've had so many compliments not just how good they were, but how pretty my cupcakes were.
The frosting on these cupcakes is quite rich, my suggestion don't eat dinner skip right to dessert.
These cupcakes I will most definitely make again for some occasion.
Can't really go wrong with chocolate, of any kind.
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