Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes! Oh My!

I figured at some point I should do a post on those little lovelies in the background.  Oh. EM. Gee!  They are sooo good!  P.S. Sorry for you facebook peeps who thought I was doing a photography post… I changed my mind.  But that is coming later this week or this weekend, I promise! 
I am going to go ahead and apologize for the lack of pictures in this post.  These were made in the days before my blog, which means I wasn’t as concerned about taking pictures of the process.  Sad story, I know.  

This recipe is from The Cake Mix Doctor Returns by Anne Byrn.  I mentioned this cookbook in my second post.  As far as beginners baking goes, this is the cookbook to buy.  The recipes ease you into the homemade baking process without having to do every single step.  As the title suggests, she starts with a box of cake mix in almost all her recipes and gives lots of great tips. 

I guess you need a little background on why I made these.  Ironically, considering my last post, it was another work friends birthday!  One thing you have to understand about our office is that I work in a small (10 staff) office.  We work for a large company in a satellite location.  Within our office there are eight women and two poor men.  And the second man was only added to our office a year ago.  So poor Jackie, who was the first and lone guy for about 3 years, has to be the most tolerant man I know.  I mean you have EIGHT women you have to listen to and put up with all week long, every. single. week.  Don’t get me wrong, he loves us (come on Jackie, you know you do), but I thought he deserved something nice for his birthday.  So I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and told him that I would literally bake him anything he wanted.  He told me he either wanted yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting or chocolate chip cookies.  Now I tried to reason with him… I mean come on, could you get any more boring?  But he said that those were his favorite baked goods, so I agreed.  Well of course, the gears in my mind started to turn and I realized that the Cake Mix Doctor MUST have a solution to my problem.  Sure enough what did I find… chocolate chip cookie dough inside yellow cupcakes WITH chocolate frosting.  I mean could it be any more perfect?!  I think not.
     +  
= Perfection
I bought all the ingredients and went to work.  These really weren’t too bad to make.  Granted, I’ve been making a lot of things from scratch lately.  You start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees.  Then, line 24 cupcake cups (it may not make all 24, mine made 21) with paper liners.  I had some cute Christmas-y liners so I used those.  Set the pan aside and get out a large mixing bowl.  (You don’t have to have a stand mixer for this recipe.)  Place the cake mix, pudding mix, milk, oil, eggs, and vanilla in the bowl and beat with a hand mixer (or stand mixer) on low until everything is incorporated, maybe half a minute.  Scrape the sides as needed.  Now mix at a medium speed for about 2 minutes longer or until it looks well mixed. 
Set aside 1 cup of the cupcake batter.  Take the rest of the batter and pour a heaping 1/4 cup of batter into each cupcake cup.  It should fill about two thirds of the cup.  Take the refrigerated cookie dough (I just bought a package with 20 or 24 cookies – whatever the regular size cookies are, not the giant ones.  I prefer the “natural” ones without any of that high fructose corn crap syrup) and roll them a little so the edges are smooth.  *Edit:  I just had a realization that I am pretty sure I only used half of a regular sized refrigerated cookie dough cookie in each cupcake.  I had a dream about this, totally not kidding.  So sorry for that mix up.  I made these pre-blog and so remembering specifics and having notes weren't as important then.  Then, put one of the balls of cookie dough on top of each of the cupcake cups filled 2/3’s with batter and push it down a little… they will look just like my background picture.  After doing that with all the cupcake cups, take the cupcake batter you put aside and put 1 tsp of it on top of each cupcake.  Now you’re ready to bake those suckers!  Bake for 23-27 minutes, or until they are gold on the top and and spring back when (lightly) pressed with a finger.  Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for about 5 minutes.  Then you will take the cupcakes out of the pan by tugging on the liners.  If that seems too difficult, take a flat knife and run it around the edges that are sticking.  Once you have them out, let them cool for about another 15 minutes on a cooling rack.  Make sure they are completely cool before frosting.



While they are cooling, make the chocolate frosting…  Cream the butter and cocoa powder (not the kind I used in the chocolate crack cookies – this should just be the regular unsweetened kind) in a medium sized bowl on low until its combined, about 30 seconds.  Next, stop the mixer and add the confectioners sugar, 1/3 cup of milk, and vanilla.  Mix on low until it is fluffy, about 2 1/2 minutes.  Add 1 tbsp at a time of additional milk if the frosting is too thick or more confectioners sugar if the frosting is too thin.  My experience was that the frosting was very thin.  You want it a little thicker than you think in order to make the cupcakes pretty when you frost them.  For frosting, use a piping bag or, since most of us don’t have fancy shmancy stuff like that, take a baggie (sandwich size at a minimum, or larger) and cut a small hole in one of the bottom corners.  Fill the bag with frosting to frost the cupcake.  Start applying pressure in the middle of the cupcake and make a circle around the cupcake, then meet back in the middle and push down then up and release on the up.  Err on the side of too small for the hole if you aren’t sure.  You can always cut it larger but you can’t cut it smaller    Frosting cupcakes is an art and it takes practice.  Don’t fret if they don’t look perfect the first time you try, you’ll get better!
Then, if you want, decorate the tops with regular and white chocolate chips!  Yummmmy!  

(See, the frosting looks kinda runny.  It tasted REALLY good though!)

So there you go!  Oh gosh you are going to love them.  The best part is when you make it to the middle where the cookie dough is… gahhhhh it’s so good.  

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes
24 cupcake liners
1 package of plain yellow cake mix
1 package of vanilla instant pudding mix (3.4 oz)
1 cup milk (I used skim and it worked fine)
1 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 package refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough (20-24 pk)

Fluffy Chocolate Frosting
8 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temp
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 cups confectioners sugar, sifted (you may need a little more)
1/3 cup milk (you may need a little more)
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

ENJOY!!!

Thoughts:

1. Does anyone know how to attach a document to a post using windows live writer for blogger?
2. OMG… does anyone watch Dexter?  We are officially addicted and have watched the first two seasons in a week and a half!  Seriously, it is so good.  I realize we are wayyy late to the game but whoa it’s such a good show!
3. I’m an idiot and deleted all the comments on any blog posts so far   I was so sad/mad at myself.  But I guess I learned that lesson the hard way.  Wha Whaa!  Oh well, won’t ever do that again!