36 Oreo Cupcakes

Once again, it's somebody's birthday at work. I'm going to start to card people to see if it really is their birthday and that they aren't just conning me into making them cupcakes. I didn't think making these would be a problem and I had most of the ingredients except for the very important Oreos.

Making the cupcakes was a breeze. The recipe says it makes 24 cupcakes. I made 36 and still had tons of cake batter left over. The only thing stopping me from making more cupcakes was that I ran out of Oreos. They baked for a lot longer than the 15-20 minutes. I had them in the oven for 26 minutes. The cupcakes came out of the oven with beautifully rounded tops.

The icing was really weird. When I read about the cupcakes, the blog said that the icing would be worth it. I figured, I'll give it a shot. To start the icing, you need to cook milk and flour. I have a few suggestions. Hopefully, if you make these, this will go more smoothly for you than it did for me. First, stir it with a wooden spoon, don't keep whisking it. Second tip: Have the stove on more of a medium-low than just plain old low. And if none of that helps you, add a quarter cup more of flour. The mixture gets pasty and starts sticking to the spoon.  After you let the ball of flour mush cool, it's smooth sailing to the finish. All you have to do is top the cupcakes with icing and stick a mini Oreo on it. These cupcakes aren't super chocolaty. The most chocolaty part is the Oreos themselves on the bottom of the cupcakes. The icing, although not very good on its own, makes the cupcakes taste like the cookies.

Weird milk and flour mixture before I put it in the fridge

Cupcakes Ingredients
2 c sugar
2 c flour
3/4 c cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 package of instant chocolate pudding
3 eggs
1/2 c oil
1 c sour cream
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 c coffee
24 Oreos, twisted apart

Cupcakes How to
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pudding mix. Add oil, eggs, sour cream, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until blended (about 2 minutes). Slowly add hot coffee. Beat for 30 seconds.
3. Put Oreos in cupcakes papers cream side up. Fill liners 1/2 full.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
5. Let cool.

Icing Ingredients
1 c milk
3/4 c flour
1/2 c butter
1/2 c Crisco
3/4 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
24 Oreo tops, crushed

Icing How to
1. Place milk in a small saucepan. Sprinkle flour in milk, 1/4 cup at a time and whisk until smooth.
2. Place saucepan over low heat and stir constantly until the mixture becomes thick and pulls into a ball.
3. Remove from heat and put ball into a bowl. Place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the mixture and tuck around it to make sure there are no exposed parts. Refrigerate until cooled to room temperature or cooler (about 30 minutes).
4. In a large bowl, cream the butter and Crisco. Add cooled flour/milk mixture and beat until well blended. Mix in vanilla. With mixer on medium, gradually add sugar and continue to beat the icing after adding the sugar for an additional 10 to 12 minutes until noticeably whiter and creamy. Add Oreo crumbs and mix until just blended.
5. Frost cupcakes and garnish with a mini Oreo.

from mychocolatetherapy.blogspot.com

22 Gregberry Cupcakes

A Girl's Adventure in Inventing Her Own Cupcakes

In my whole life, I'm sure I've used over 2,000 cupcake papers, but in all my years of cupcaking, I have always looked up a recipe. I've had many intense brain storming sessions about cupcake flavors to make. After considering many suggestions, I thought that a strawberry and blueberry cupcake sounded like a good plan for my undertaking in becoming a recipe author. The recommendation came from the coolest, nicest, awesomest general manager ever in the universe (for whom the cupcakes get their namesake). I've been thinking about how and what to do with these cupcakes. Should I use fresh strawberries or strawberry jelly or strawberry soda? Should I have a whipped icing or a cream cheese icing? That's just the start of all the questions I've asked myself over the past 2 weeks. Over the weekend, I did extensive cupcake research and settled on what I was going to do to make this dream of a cupcake come to life.

Since I've made plenty of cupcakes, I knew what the batter needed to look like each step of the way. So I began. I added the normal cupcake ingredients in the same way I normally would if I was following a recipe in a book. Everything went very smoothly to my surprise. The batter was perfect. They went in and came out 19 minutes later. They were perfect! I had to taste them. I'm not going to lie about it, just so you make these miracle cupcakes. They kind of disappointed me at first. The fresh strawberries didn't give them enough of a strawberry flavor. They are tasty though, like a self contained strawberry shortcake.

Even though I felt very ambitious, making cupcakes from my own invented concoction an all, I wasn't about to make everything from scratch. The cheesecake pudding mix is just enough pudding-y and cheesecake-y to make the perfect cupcake filling and be the perfect compliment to the store bought blueberry pie filling. After I cored the cupcakes, I squashed the loose cake in the middle  down with the end of a spoon to leave plenty of room to fill the cupcakes. I used a zippy bag to squeeze the cheesecake pudding into the cupcakes and two spoons to put the pie filling in (one to scoop up the pie filling and the other to scrape it off the spoon and into the cupcakes).

I made the icing just as I would make any other butter cream icing, only adding  strawberry puree and blueberry pie filling. In the end, it's your preference. If you want your icing to taste more blueberry or strawberry add more of whichever you like best.

I think that, considering this was my first journey in recipe writing, I did pretty well. When I took the first bite of the completed project, I literally said "oh my god, these are amazing". And to think this recipe came from the deep recesses of my brain... to me that's unbelievable.


Gotta save the strawberry tops for my Bunnies

Cupcake Ingredients
3/4 c strawberries
1/2 c butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 c milk

Cupcake How to
1. Preheat the oven to 350
2. Chop the strawberries into small pieces.
3. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, mix well between each egg. Add vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
5. Alternate adding the dry ingredients (in 3 parts) and milk (in 2 parts).
6. Fill cupcake papers 2/3 full. Bake for about 18 minutes.
7. Allow the cupcakes to cool entirely

Filling Ingredients
instant pudding mix- cheesecake flavored
blueberry pie filling

Filling How to
1. Follow the instructions to make the pudding. Allow it to set (usually about 5 minutes)
2. Core the cupcakes.
3. Using a bag, fill the cupcakes 2/3 of the way full with pudding.
4. Fill the rest of the way with blueberry pie filling.

Remember to leave some room for the Blueberries

Icing Ingredients
2 sticks of butter
4 c powdered sugar
1/4 c of strawberries, pureed
2 tsp heaping blueberry pie filling

Icing How to
1. Cream together sugar and butter until fluffy.
2. Add half of the pureed strawberries. Add blueberries.
3. Continue adding more strawberry until desired consistency is reached (water can also be used)
4. Frost cupcakes and garnish with a strawberry.

23 Champagne Cupcakes

Despite the fact that, generally, baking cupcakes is fun and makes me happy, these ones kind of bummed me out. I made them for one of the coolest girls I've ever had a chance to work with. We've had fun adventures (one epic Sunday one comes to mind), crazy times at work together (Valentine's Day night), and some great quality time together (like the time she met my bunnies and turned out to be allergic... oops). Anyway... She's super awesome and I wanted to bake going away cupcakes for her and nothing says "good luck with all your future pursuits" like champagne. Since alcohol cupcakes is "my thing" to all my coworkers, I figured I'd give these a whirl.

A few great things about these particular cupcakes: 1. They have alcohol in them. 2. It's not just any alcohol, but it's bubbly champagne, so you can expect these to be fluffy. 3. They have sour cream in them! I love cupcake recipes with sour cream in them, because they come out moist and perfect. 4. I like to write numbered lists. It's simple enough to make these following the directions. It warns that the batter will be a little thick; I didn't think it was though. Also, it's recommended to use "a level 1/4 cup" to fill the cupcake papers. I did two and I was annoyed so I just used the trusty half full ice cream scoop. They only baked for 17 minutes and came out just right.

Thickened Pastry Filling

I expected the custard filling to be the most difficult part of this recipe, but it wasn't as hard as i was anticipating. After you pour the hot egg mixture back in the saucepan, stir it until it gets thickens up. It only takes about a minute. I put the custard back into the mixing bowl, instead of beating in the butter and vanilla in the pan. That would not have turned out well. I envisioned molten hot custard all over the kitchen and me in the hospital.

If you don't happen to have a cupcake corer, cutting a chunk out of your cupcakes with a knife would work just fine. Even though the recipe doesn't say to, I chilled the custard before filling my cupcakes with it. Going back to another cupcake baker's arsenal, I just used a zippy back with the corner snipped off to put the custard in the cupcakes.

Reduced Champagne. This was a little bit more than 2 Tbsp.

To reduce the champagne, it took a little bit of time. How long? Long enough to clean up the kitchen a little bit and load the dish washer. I put 2 tablespoons of water in a bowl to get an idea of what it would look like. Then, all you have to do is whip together all the ingredients. I added a little extra champagne so you could taste it more. Overall, even though there is champagne in ever element of these cupcakes, it's the custard that you taste it the most in. The different parts of them makes for a triple threat, at least as far as cupcakes go.

Cupcake Ingredients:
1/2 c butter, softened
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 c sour cream
1/2 c champagne

Cupcake How to:
1. Preheat the oven to 350
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until lightly fluffy. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and mix.
3. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
4. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together champagne and sour cream. The mixture will fizz and bubble a little.
5. Add flour and champagne mixture alternately, beginning and ending with flour. Batter will be thick.
6. Fill cupcake papers with 1/4 c level measures of batter.
7. Bake for 17-22 minutes.

Champagne Pastry Creme Filling Ingredients:
1/2 c heavy cream, divided
1/2 c champagne
2 Tbsp cornstarch
5 Tbsp sugar
1 egg
2 egg yolks
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla

Filling How To:
1. In a medium bowl, whisk cornstarch into 1/4 c heavy cream.
2. Combine the remaining heavy cream, sugar and champagne in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat.
3. Beat the whole egg and yolks into the cornstarch/heavy cream mixture.
4. Pour 1/3 of the boiling champagne mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so the eggs do not cook.
5. Return the remaining champagne/heavy cream mixture to a boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens.
6. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla.
7. Cut a divot into the top of each cupcake and fill with pastry cream. Trim the cut-out pieces flat to make a "lid" and place on top of the filled divot.

Champagne Frosting Ingredients:
1 c plus 1 Tbsp champagne
2 sticks of butter
2 1/2 c powdered sugar

Frosting How to:
1. Place 1 c champagne in a small saucepan. Simmer over medium-high heat until reduced to 2 Tbsp. Transfer to a small bowl and allow to cool.
2. In a bowl of a stand mixer with a whisk, cream butter and powdered sugar.
3. Once, the frosting is thick and fluffy, pour in reduced 2 Tbsp champagne plus the 1 Tbsp from the bottle and mix well.
4. Frost the cream filled cupcakes and decorate with dragees.