Cupcake Overboard

Hey! Remember me? I'm still here. So much has happened in the last month--I keep waiting for a big enough chunk of time that I can catch you up on my progress all at once.

Yeah...that's not going to happen. So I figure I'll take it a little at a time. Bite-sized chunks. Starting.............now. :)

For the last week I've been unable to stay away from food. Like, all food. At all times. This does not help the 100-pounds-down goal and is continually frustrating. I've kept my weight pretty steady b/c I'm still training for that 10K, but that doesn't address my inability to keep from putting everything in my mouth.

So what do I do? I make cupcakes filled with chocolate chip cookie dough.

Lord God, deliver me from these, the works of my hands.

You guys, these cupcakes were amazing. I had to make something for our staff team's end-of-the-semester picnic, which seemed like a good excuse to knock off another new recipe. Puttering around the interweb, I found that people are stuffing cupcakes with cookie dough now. The secret, see, is to freeze the cookie dough so that while the cupcake bakes, the dough just thaws and stays all doughy and gooey.

I know.

I combined ideas from a few different sources, and here's what I ended up with.

First I made cookie dough...almost the Toll House recipe. No eggs, though, because I have deeply rooted food safety issues.

1 cup softened butter
3/4 c brown sugar
3/4 c granulated white sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla
4 Tbsp milk (in place of the eggs)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Cream the butter and sugar, add the vanilla, work in the flour and salt, and stir in the chips. Bada bing. Then you shape it into little balls (easier if you put it in the fridge for a bit first) and put them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or nonstick foil, and freeze them. For a long time. I left mine overnight.
Mine are little logs because one recipe suggested this would stand upright in the cupcake and give you more of an even cookie dough center.

The next morning, the cupcakes themselves. I almost made them from scratch, which I never ever ever do. My from-scratch cakes are always heavy and flat and lame and leave me thinking, "Why exactly didn't I spend a dollar on a perfectly good cake mix?" In a moment of weakness I almost braved the recipe, but I didn't have enough flour. This may have been God's hand of protection on my staff team.

Anyway, you could use whatever vanilla cupcake recipe you want. I used a good old Betty Crocker "Butter Recipe Golden" mix. Yum. Then, once the batter's in the cups, you put the cookie dough in the center of each cupcake right before they go in the oven. If you made little balls, they can just sit on top of the batter. My clever little logs, however, looked like this.
???? Yeah. I couldn't do it. I ended up breaking them in half and tucking them in.
Better. In the buttery batter. Heh.

So then they bake at 350 for 16-18 minutes. They come out completely unassuming and normal-looking, which I love.
See? No indication of their secret cargo. But oh my gosh, did they smell like heaven.

There are few things that could convince me to abandon my beloved wedding buttercream frosting, but I couldn't resist trying a cookie dough flavored buttercream for these. After researching and tweaking, here's what I ended up with.

3 sticks of butter, softened
3/4 cup light brown sugar
3 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp heavy cream (though milk will work)
1 tsp vanilla

Cream the butter and brown sugar, mix in the confectioner's sugar, add the rest, and mix on medium-high for about 3 minutes.

The texture of this was a little different due to the brown sugar. It stays a tiny bit crunchy, which I guess is what evokes the cookie dough thing. If you're not into cookie dough, this might not be for you. But then, if you're not into cookie dough, I'm not sure I understand you on many levels.

I piped it onto the cupcakes (new for me) and garnished with chocolate chips. Here's the result.
Isn't it cute? Now, for the sake of the blogosphere or journalistic integrity or something, I figured I was pretty much obliged to cut one open so I could get a picture of the secret goodness inside.
Can you handle that? Oh my goodness. And of course, once it was open, all fragrant and...yeah, I ate it. There wasn't really any way around it. And it was incredible.

Now, I have to say that it's really rich and really sweet. If you don't swing that way, this may not be your thing. But I figure if I'm going to eat a cupcake, it might as well be a cupcake that goes totally overboard on the decadence. Mission accomplished.

Here they are ready to go to the picnic. So cute.
They were well-received. :)

I have to go to bed. It's midnight, and I'm supposed to run tomorrow morning if it's not stupid raining out again. I'll be back sooner next time, I promise. There's much to tell.