This project starts by making chocolate cupcakes. The recipe I chose was a chocolate buttermilk cake, it uses Dutch processed cocoa and has been tweaked to make only exactly 12 cupcakes. On this day I could not possibly need more than 12 cupcakes. So use whichever chocolate cake recipe you're fondest of, or here's one from me if you don't feel much like looking too far.
Cookies and Cream Frosting
1/2 cup butter - room temp
1/4 cup whole milk - room temp (plus a little extra for later)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pound confectioners sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
15 cream filled chocolate cookies of choice (here's where I admit that I went with neither the name nabisco or newman brands. I decided to take this adventure late Thursday night and the closest store to me is actually a gas station where they only sell giant generic packages of double-filled-shure-fine-stuffed-chocolate-sandwich-cookies. so that's what I got. no rules)
Beat butter until creamy, add milk and vanilla and beat until well combined. Add confectioners sugar and salt beating on low until combined, then increase speed to high. Continue to beat until frosting is light and fluffy. Break cookies into bits and add them to the frosting with mixer running. They will continue to break up into smaller pieces. (In case you're wondering, adding the cookies directly to the mixer bowl seemed to work better than giving them a whirl in the 'ol food processor because all of that double cream filling really wanted to stick to the side of the processor and gum things up. Been there, done that.) After cookies have been sufficiently combined and crumbled, you may want to add a few more Tablespoons of milk to get a lighter, pipe-able, frosting consistency. I did.
Ok. Now you have all of the pieces of the puzzle. Here's what to do with them:
Get all of your ingredients together and your work area ready.
Make a filling space in each cupcake by cutting the middle portion out with a paring knife. Wait! Don't eat the middle parts! You'll need them in a little bit.
Fill that space with something. I used chocolate mousse. Maybe you'll use a cookie, or pudding, or mousse, or ganache. I don't know, anything could happen.
Put a cap on it. This is what those middle parts are for! As you can see from the photo, I needed to size the middle parts down so the caps would fit back on. This means there are some chocolate cake scraps to snack on after all.
Pipe or spread frosting on. I garnished mine with a broken bit of cookie. Cookie crumbs would be nice too...
While said chocolate cupcakes of choice are baking is the perfect time to assemble your filling and frosting. I filled mine with bittersweet chocolate mousse and frosted them with cookies and cream buttercream. Filling is an extra step and of course not necessary, but come on, why wouldn't you?
1/2 cup butter - room temp
1/4 cup whole milk - room temp (plus a little extra for later)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pound confectioners sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
15 cream filled chocolate cookies of choice (here's where I admit that I went with neither the name nabisco or newman brands. I decided to take this adventure late Thursday night and the closest store to me is actually a gas station where they only sell giant generic packages of double-filled-shure-fine-stuffed-chocolate-sandwich-cookies. so that's what I got. no rules)
Beat butter until creamy, add milk and vanilla and beat until well combined. Add confectioners sugar and salt beating on low until combined, then increase speed to high. Continue to beat until frosting is light and fluffy. Break cookies into bits and add them to the frosting with mixer running. They will continue to break up into smaller pieces. (In case you're wondering, adding the cookies directly to the mixer bowl seemed to work better than giving them a whirl in the 'ol food processor because all of that double cream filling really wanted to stick to the side of the processor and gum things up. Been there, done that.) After cookies have been sufficiently combined and crumbled, you may want to add a few more Tablespoons of milk to get a lighter, pipe-able, frosting consistency. I did.
Ok. Now you have all of the pieces of the puzzle. Here's what to do with them:
