Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Hi!!

It's the start of a new month, so just let me say, "Rabbit!" It's rather traditional in my family, and kind of weird, and yet awesome. My grandmother would say rabbit on the first of a month for good luck. It's rather easy and simple, so I figure, why not say "rabbit" rather than "bah, what's that gonna do?" Additionally, it gives you the mindset that you are going to have an awesome and luck month, which I believe is the first step to actually having an awesome month.

I don't want to delve into it too deeply, because it really doesn't have that much to do with my post today. But I am a strong believer in positive thinking, and the fact that if you believe you can't do something, you probably never will. Whereas if you believe you can do something, you probably will.

Now, what's something that always helps me feel better, and encourages me to think positively? Baking! That's right! There is nothing like making something yourself, and then eating it. Besides, you then get used to it and stuff from the store just isn't the same.

So, here I am going to tell you about some pretty awesome cupcakes that I made. I thought, what if you put cookie inside of a cupcake? So I googled around, and got some ideas for how to do it, and I managed to find an awesome frosting recipe! Here is where I found the frosting! She also has a detailed recipe for the cupcakes as well, but I wanted chocolate, and I didn't have my computer with me when I made it so I just used cake mix, and a simple chocolate chip cookie dough recipe off the back of a chocolate chip bag.

Starting off with the cupcake, there are two things you need to prepare- the cake batter and the cookie dough. Both are relatively simple. The cake batter, to be honest, I've been making from a box. (Oh the horror!! the horror!! and you just talked about making it yourself!! A box is cheating!!). Yep, I know, but I didn't have all the ingredients on hand for cake, and I didn't want to buy them all either. The cookie dough, however, I ALWAYS make myself. Store bought just doesn't taste the same anymore.

I like to start off with the cookie dough. This is important because you can make dough balls and stick them in the fridge or freezer while you prepare the cake batter. This way, when you bake them, the cookie dough won't cook all the way, and you have warm gooey cookie in the center!

Usually, I just prep chocolate cookies using the recipe off of the back of a chocolate chip bag. Easy, right? So if you want a quick recipe, here you go. Now, if you are worried about salmonella, or other food poisoning because the cookie doesn't get cooked all the way, just remove the two eggs from your recipe. Sometimes I keep them, sometimes I don't. I actually like to keep them because I am left with leftover cookie dough recipe that I can use to make cookies. And I don't get sick from food poisoning- at least not yet- but I'm pretty young, soo... Right, just remove the eggs, and if you do, you can also halve the recipe so you don't have excess eggless cookie dough. Or you can eat the excess eggless cookie dough if you don't halve it. Make the dough into whatever sized ball you want in your cupcake, and place on a tray in the fridge or freezer.

Next, just follow your favorite cake recipe or a box recipe. I went with chocolate, but you could go with whatever flavor you like and think would go well with the cookie. White, yellow, red velvet, carrot- wait, maybe not.

Once you've done  that, get out your muffin tin/cupcake tray, whatever you want to call it. Grease it good, or stick little cupcake wrappers in. Pour cake batter until the tin is a little more than halfway full (more if your dough balls are small, less if they are big). Plop a cookie ball into each, and voila! Now, you can choose to sort of cover the dough balls with some more cake batter so they are not peeking out the top, or let them stay peeking. I've found that when they are covered they tend to sink down to the bottom like in the picture above. However, even if I don't cover them, sometimes they still sink.

Well, anyway, I pretty much cover mine like you can see above. Then I stick them in the oven. OK, so normally a human being would tell you how long they baked these suckers for, but I don't really time it. Probably about 20 minutes. (I tell when they are done by smell, that's why, and observation). If you gently poke with a finger, the cupcake should readily spring back when it is done. You can also poke it with a toothpick or a skewer into the middle of the cupcake and if it comes out clean, they're done (although be careful because you might poke a chocolate chip).

I pop them out of the pan quick because I didn't want them to overcook or stick to the pan once they cooled. Next up is frosting!!

I got the recipe from Tidy Mom, and it is really really really good! OK, it is perfect! So, then I made them, and here is what they look like!

So go to Tidy Mom's website and make yourself some!

Until next time,

Sarah