This past weekend we celebrated, in true large-family style, the birthdays of my oldest nephew on my side of the family (4 already!!) and my dear hubby (age top secret ;)).
I love these family dinners with two of my four sisters, especially after a couple years living away from them, even if we do spend a good part of the time refereeing as my sharing-challenged daughter pushes the boys around.
I had the pleasure of making dessert, and, aiming to please both the kid crowd and the adult contingent, and having recently printed a must-try recipe for cupcakes and picked up some adorable little cupcake papers, I got to work.
These. are. ridiculous.
Innocent looking enough, right? But little do you know…the cupcake is cookie dough flavoured, the center is ooey-gooey cookie dough, and even the ICING is cookie dough flavoured! In fact, aside from my favourite brownie icing ever, this is probably the best icing I have ever tasted. But then, I love cookie dough, and if I can have my cookie dough and no raw eggs too, I am in.
Really, who am I kidding, I was in raw eggs or not.
The recipe looks long but I promise every step is extremely easy and well worth the effort. Having said that, the cupcake itself was not spectacular, as many cupcakes aren’t – which is to say, not necessarily worth the effort over a vanilla box mix with the addition of a few chocolate chips.
A word of warning before you get started: when you take out the centers of the cupcakes and it looks like just a little bit to pop into your mouth, have some water handy, because by the time you pop that 24th center into your mouth you are THIRSTY. And your brain is starting to catch up to your stomach and tastebuds, and you are starting to feel a little comatose. Still, it’s important for quality control purposes to test each one, so don’t give up on me!
- CUPCAKES: (makes 24 cupcakes…can easily be halved)
- 1 ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 ½ cups light brown sugar, packed
- 4 eggs
- 2⅔ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 cup milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- FILLING:
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
- 6 tbsp packed brown sugar
- 1 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 7 oz sweetened condensed milk (approx 12 tbsp)
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
- FROSTING:
- 1 ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- ¾ cup packed light brown sugar
- 3 ½ cups icing sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ¾ tsp salt
- 3 tbsp milk
- 2 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners. Beat butter and brown sugar on medium until light and fluffy, about 3 min. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add to wet ingredients alternately with milk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients, mixing each addition until just incorporated. Blend in the vanilla and fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula.
- Divide batter evenly between cupcakes and bake for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to rack to cool completely.
- FILLING: Combine butter and sugar; cream on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the flour, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour to let it firm up a bit.
- To fill the cooled cupcakes, cut a cone-shaped portion out of the center of each cupcake and eat the resulting crumbs :). Fill each hole with a chunk of the cookie dough filling mixture.
- FROSTING: (If you just want a thin layer of icing, half the recipe). Beat together butter and brown sugar until creamy. Mix in icing sugar until smooth. Beat in flour and salt, then add milk and vanilla and beat until very smooth. Frost and decorate as desired.
Adapted from Annie’s Eats (check out her blog for much nicer pictures – I wasn’t ambitious enough to make the tiny chocolate chip cookies to perch on top and it was dark when I had a chance to snap these!)
Okay, so I made these for the ‘Young adults bible study’ group that I hosted last week, and they devoured these cupcakes. I got so many compliments. I made little chocolate heart-shaped garnishes for Valentine’s Day.
Thanks for reporting back :) Glad they were a hit – they are definitely one of my favorite indulgences! Love the idea of heart garnishes!
Yum. Yum. Yum. I’m making these cupcakes right now, and just finished eating all the middles in order to put in the filling. Wow! I can’t wait to eat the whole thing!! :)
Yum! All your recipes look so yummy! I just made a batch of the chocolate chip cookies:) And in regards to your Kitchenaid dream post, I feel bad telling you that I got two as wedding presents! Definitely one of my favourite wedding presents.
Clearly I will be inviting YOUR friends/family to my next wedding! :) Hope you like the cookies!
it’s true… it was torture seeing you guys eat these… I will have to master a gluten free version :)
these.look.AMAZING! you should bring them to book club:D
Ooooh, good idea! A perfect chance to try them with a different cupcake!