Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes

I just love dessert! I found a great recipe for Cookie Dough Cupcakes. 


Ideally you would make cookie dough from scratch, the cupcake batter from scratch, and the frosting from scratch. But I pride myself on taking the easy way out if I think the results will be just as good. So I bought a tube of cookie dough and used a box of cake mix to make the cup cakes as well as a can of chocolate frosting. I thought the results were fantastic! You can judge me, but I'm ok with it.


Check out this awesome old-school mixer we have at the beach house. Works just as good as my one at home!



Ingredients:
1 tube of cookie dough (you probably won't use the whole package)
1 box yellow cake mix
1 1/3 cups water
1/3 cup canola oil
3 eggs
1 can of chocolate frosting








Directions:
Roll the cookie dough into 1 inch balls and place in freezer for 2 hours. 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Using a mixer, beat eggs.
Add cake mix, water, & oil and mix on medium speed for a couple minutes until smooth.
Place cupcake liners in a cupcake tin and fill most of the way (but not all of the way) with the cupcake batter.
Place cookie dough ball in center of each cupcake. 
Don't worry about the ball being completely covered, it will be covered when it bakes. 
Bake in oven for about 20 minutes. Check with toothpick to make sure that the cupcake is cooked through, don't worry about the cookie part.
Remove and let cool for 10 minutes before covering with frosting.
Serve with sprinkles if you so desire!






I had some leftover batter and cookie dough so I poured the rest of the batter in a square cake pan and placed 9 cookie dough balls in the middle then baked it the same way, but a little bit longer because it was cake. It was equally awesome.

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

April Fool's Cupcakes!

They may look like mashed potatoes! But they are REALLY chocolate cupcakes with lots of vanilla frosting. YUM!!! For more on cute cupcake tricks see my Meatloaf Cupcake post. 


This is a great idea even if it isn't April Fool's Day! But it was April Fool's so I had to come up with something. There are lots of great ideas out there. Some of the easy ones are the pound cake that looks like grilled cheese, the cupcakes that look like corn on the cob, and the fake fried egg. 


After tossing around different ideas, I finally settled on this one and I'm so glad I did. So cute!

Here's how it works...bake cupcakes (they can be from scratch or you can jus use cake mix from a box). I would recommend a light color that you can't see through vanilla icing. However, I used chocolate because it just tastes better! 

Once they cool cover with vanilla frosting. I used Pillsbury Dough Easy Frost which certainly made the process easy but did have maybe a different texture than regular mashed potatoes. So it's up to you. I think homemade frosting would probably look the best (but I'm all about he short cuts!) if you have time for that and know a good recipe.

Use a spoon to make a circle in the frosting in the middle of each cupcake. Fill each with caramel topping.

Meanwhile, in the microwave, place unwrapped yellow starburst candies and heat for about 10 to 20 seconds. You don't wan them to actually melt, just to soften. You take them and press them down so that they look more like butter. Place in the middle of the caramel puddle. It's ok if it oozes and overflows. Then drizzle with additional caramel giving the impression of gravy. 

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Meatloaf Cupcakes

For April Fool's my cooking club had a get together and I decided it would be fun to make one of those April Fool's Desserts (google it). I went with the whole mashed potato cupcake thing. It was great.

However, one of my friends (Hi Jess!) was really disappointed when the she found out the mashed potatoes were chocolate cupcakes & frosting, she actually WANTED the mashed potatoes instead. So as a treat, when I knew she was coming over for dinner, I decided to make mashed potatoes for real. I wanted to keep with the cupcake theme though, so I decided I would do meat cupcakes instead with mashed potato icing. So cute! It might sound gross, but it's actually quite delicious.

There are a bazillion meatloaf recipes out there and anyone will do. I'm a no-thrills kind of meatloaf gal. I don't like bbq sauce or brown sugar or too much of anything else. I like a little bit of seasoning and some veggies. I also want the meatloaf as healthy as possible. That's why I'm really happy with this recipe. I did a 50/50 combination of ground turkey and extra lean ground beef. 

I also put in shredded carrots, diced onions, and diced celery. Normally it would be a pain in the rear end to dice, chop, and shred all those veggies and try to get them small enough to mix into the meat mixture. But with the help of Darrenkamp's and my small food processor it was very easy.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb lean ground beef
1/2 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup shredded carrot
1/2 cup onion, diced
1/2 cup celery, diced
1/3 cup skim milk
3/4 cup italian-style breadcrumbs
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan
2 eggs
salt & pepper
Box of instant mashed potatoes and all the ingredients that goes with it or homemade mashed potatoes.


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare the instant mashed potatoes, directed by the box. (See end note on why to do the mashed potatoes first).
Next, start to prepare the meatloaf.
In a small bowl mix in the breadcrumbs and milk.
Saute the veggies until soft. (You can use oil, but I chose to just use fat free olive oil spray).
Transfer into a food processor once the veggies have cooled and mince on a low setting until the veggies are very tiny.
Mix the meat, eggs, breadcrumbs/milk, parmesan, parsley, salt & pepper together in a large bowl. Use your hands or a spoon, make sure it's mixed well.
Place meat mixture into muffin pan. (I use the bendable, non-stick muffin pans and the meatloaf pops out easily at the end.) You should fill up each muffin cup about most of the way.
Bake in oven for about 20 to 25 minutes.
Makes about 12.
For the mashed potato topping you will use about 4 oz. of instant mashed potatoes. Follow directions on box.
(for pink icing mix in beet juice!)
Use a star tip and pipe the frosting or use a plastic bag and cut a whole in it. [You might want to do the mashed potatoes first, then do the meatloaf because it's hard to pipe the mashed potatoes when they are still really really hot.]

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Cupcake Bites

These are so so so amazing. I think it's because I used the dark chocolate mint melts instead of regular. If you like mint & dark chocolate AND like cake pops then this is the perfect mesh.

You need to make normal cake pop balls like you would for any other recipe. Make them, prepare them, and freeze them first. After they have been shaped and in the freezer for 15 minutes you are ready to move on. You won't need sticks for this.


The trick is to use the candy molds in the shape of peanut butter cups for the base of your cup cake bites. Melt chocolate wafers (I highly recommend the dark chocolate mint if you like the combination of those flavors, look for them at AC Moore or Michael's) according to package directions. You have the option of using the squeeze bottles, any kind will do. But I didn't really like using them. You might have better luck. Just make sure they are FULLY melted. I used a normal glass cup to melt mine in.


Then you spoon/squeeze the melted chocolate into the molds. Don't fill them all the way. Only fill 3/4 of the way. Only do a couple at a time. Because before they dry you must place the cake balls in each mold with the chocolate in it. Once the tray is full place them in the freezer. You may want to use multiple trays at a time to make this go faster.


Wait for them to cool an dry. Pop them out individually. Melt a different color chocolate such as pink or another cut cupcake color. Dip the top of the cupcake, the cake ball, into the melted chocolate holding the cupcake by the chocolate base. Place a red M&M upside down on the top and cover with rainbow sprinkles before the chocolate melts. 


ADORABLE!!!

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)