Last weekend, Michael and I got invited to two dinners out. Friday night with friends, Saturday night with family.
I always feel obligated to bring something when I go to someone’s house for dinner, and it’s seldom that pride will allow me to bring something store-bought (unless its wine!).
I offered to bring dessert, but was stumped about what to make. So, of course, I turned to my right-hand man. “Oreo Cake” he said.
Now, I must explain that I made “Oreo Cake” for his birthday a couple years back, and it clearly made an impression. The cake was, essentially, a giant Oreo cookie: two layers of chocolate cake with a cream-cheese filling that included smashed-up Oreos, and then was topped with a chocolate ganache and more Oreos. Wicked.
I thought the Oreo cake would be too complicated to shlepp to someone’s house for dinner. But cupcakes! Aha!
I remembered seeing a recipe on Pinterest for a cupcake that had an Oreo baked right in, and I had just watched an episode on Food TV with Anna Olsen making cupcakes. So it all came together…
Death by Oreo Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 12 Oreos (regular size)
- 12 Oreos (minis)–for garnish
- 1 chocolate cake mix, prepared according to package directions,
or use your favorite chocolate cake recipe from scratch - 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups icing sugar
- 1/3 cup powdered cocoa
Method
- Prepare cake mix according to directions.
- Line your muffiin tin with paper liners, and drop one Oreo in each one. It should fit nicely in the bottom of each cup.
- Fill the muffin cups up to about 2/3 full, covering over and burying the Oreos.
- Bake according to package directions, until a skewer poked in the middle of one of the cupcakes comes out clean.
- Remove from tin and allow to cool (you could bake the cupcakes the day before).
- To make the frosting, place the softened butter in a bowl, and beat it for a couple of minutes until it’s nice and soft. Slowly add the icing sugar, a bit at a time, until it’s all incorporated. Finally, add the vanilla.
- Divide the icing in half. Keep half in the original bowl, and add the cocoa to the other half, and mix well to incorporate.
- Using a piping bag (you can use a star tip if you like, I just kept mine plain), scoop a couple of spoonfuls of the plain icing into one side of the bag (horizontally). Turn it over and place a couple of spoonfuls of the chocolate icing on the other half. Seal up the top and squish down the icing until it starts to come out the tip. You may want to squeeze a bit out before you start icing the cupcakes, just to make sure it’s swirling properly together.
- Ice the cupcakes with a swirl, starting on the outside and working your way in to the centre. Garnish with a mini Oreo.
