Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Cupcakes are pretty much the trendiest food item on the market, but to be honest I’ve never made a batch of cupcakes completely from scratch – that is until yesterday.  I’ve been wanting to try these cupcakes since the day I saw them on Annie’s “Best of 2010” list, but it just never seemed like the right opportunity.  After all, cupcakes aren’t exactly a “snack food” you want to have around the house.  Plus, these particular cupcakes have an embarrassingly large amount of butter in them; which is half the reason I chickened out on making these several times.   Finally, I decided to get over my fear, and went for these cupcakes, butter and all.

Of course, they were delicious!  They have brown sugar batter with chocolate chips, are then filled with an eggless cookie dough, and then topped with a frosting that actually tastes like cookie dough.   So if you even have a slight fondness of cookie dough- you will love these!  If you think they sound too rich, don’t worry, so did I.  I thought for sure I would only be able to eat half a cupcake, but they were actually perfect, and of course eating a whole cupcake by myself was no challenge.   I particularly thought this was a great “first cupcake”, because it’s something you really couldn’t try to replicate with a box mix.  I made these over the course of a couple days – baking the cupcakes one day, filling them the next day, and then frosting them right before serving.  I would recommend this unless you have a 4-hour block of time to spend in the kitchen all at once.  I found I had too much icing left over with the original recipe, so I corrected it below to make a slightly smaller yield.  Additionally, I wrote the recipe out to make 12 cupcakes, because when I made 24 it was just too many- you really only need one of these!   And as a final suggestion, make sure you have some friends to share these with, because they are delicious (and dangerous!).

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Yield: 12 cupcakes

For the Cupcakes:

• 1 ½ sticks butter, room temperature
• ¾ cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/3 cups flour
• ½ t. baking soda
• ½ t. baking powder
• 1/8 t. salt
• ½ cup milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar with a stand mixer until fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time.  In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Alternating with milk, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until all the flour and milk are used up.  Blend in vanilla.  Stir in the chocolate chips with a spatula.

Line 1 cupcake pan with liners (12  cupcakes).  Divide batter evenly between the cups.  Bake at 350 for 16-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack.

For the Filling:

• 2 Tbsp. butter, room temperature
• 3 Tbsp. light brown sugar, packed
• ½ cup all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
• ¼  tsp. vanilla extract
• ¼ cup mini chocolate chips

Using a mixer, combine butter and brown sugar and beat until fluffy.  Add flour, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla extract, and mix until combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Refrigerate mixture to allow it to firm slightly.  While waiting for the mixture to chill, using a small, sharp knife, cut a cone shaped portion out of the center of each cupcake.  (You won’t need the part you cut out anymore, so you can discard it, or make cakeballs out of it, or eat it with ice cream…etc.)  Place a chunk of filling in the center of each cupcake, flattening the top, to make it easier to frost.

For the Frosting and Topping

• 10 Tbsp. (1 stick + 2 Tbsp. butter), softened
• 1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 4 tsp. milk
• 1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract

• Mini Chocolate Chips
• Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies*

Combine butter and brown sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy.  Add the powdered sugar a little at a time.  Then add the flour, salt, milk and vanilla extract, and mix until smooth.  Frost as desired.  (I used a 2D Wilton pastry tip).

Sprinkle finished cupcakes with mini-chocolate chips, and push a mini-chocolate chip cookie into the center of the frosting.

*I made mini chocolate chip cookies by rolling very small dough balls from chocolate chip cookie dough, but I think Famous Amos or Cookie Crisps Cereal would also work well!

Slightly adapted from Annie’s Eats, inspired by Hello Baker