Oreo Cupcakes

 

A few weeks ago, one of my good friends here told me that she loves Oreos - let's be honest, who doesn't? We had made plans to get together for lunch. She would bring the main dish and I would make the dessert. Roxana, my friend, is Mexican and I knew she would make something Mexican for lunch. I contemplated making a Tres Leches cake, but the Oreo comment stuck in my mind - Oreo cupcakes it is!

 

I started by looking for a good Oreo cupcake recipe, but couldn't find a chocolate one that didn't use a box mix. Instead I looked for a good chocolate cupcake recipe and found this one that sounded delish, my only plan for a change was to add crushed up Oreos to the batter. 

 

The batter was pretty quick and easy to mix up. Then I put some Oreos into a plastic bag and started pounding them. K came in the kitchen to see what I was doing and freaked out! "No mama!! Don't crush the Oreos, K will eat them!" I explained what I was doing, and although skeptical, he let me finish.

Once they were mixed in, you could hardly tell that they were in the batter. I might do more next time I whip these up.

For most of the cupcakes, I just added the batter to cups as per usual, but for six of them, I added an Oreo to the mix. Most of the recipes call for the Oreo to be on the bottom of the cupcake. I thought it could be cute, however, to make the Oreo like a layer in the cupcake itself. So, I added a tiny bit of batter to the liners.

Then put an Oreo on top and pressed down a bit so that the batter went up the sides of the Oreo.

Finally I covered the top with the batter and popped them in the oven.

While they were baking, I made dinner and pulled them out of the oven just before sitting down to eat. As I was making dinner, I didn't have time to make the frosting. Both K and Y wanted to eat one for dessert sans frosting, so they did. Y chose one with an Oreo layer and quite liked it. K ate up his regular one too!

I waited until the next morning to make the frosting, but put the cupcakes in bags overnight so they wouldn't dry out too much.

In the morning, just before Roxana came over, I got to work on the frosting. I used this frosting recipe because I adore cream cheese frostings. I put a bunch of Oreos into my mini-food processor and pulverized them into a powder. I was a bit worried that the cream in the middle would make it chunk together, but that didn't happen at all.

Then I mixed up the frosting, but whipped it a bit longer than the recipe suggested. I wanted it really light and airy.

Then I dumped the Oreo crumbs in and gave it another good mix.

Then, of course, I tasted it. It was delicious.

I topped each cupcake with a swirl, but for some reason, they still looked a bit lonely to me.

I didn't have too many Oreos left, so I cut a few into fourths and stuck them in the top - much better!

They were all finished up just in time for Roxana to come over. OMG! She brought the most amazing food over. We gorged ourselves on delicious tacos!

Then we gorged ourselves on cupcakes. We were all in heaven!

We started out with the regular cupcakes - no Oreo layer - first and they really were amazing. The cake was nice and airy, and the frosting tasted just like an Oreo shake. Yum.

Over the next few days, I had more of these little guys and yet I never got tired of them. I sent Roxana home with three - one for her and each of her sons, but took another one over for her the next day. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who wanted more of these. I tried one with the Oreo layer, but didn't like it at much. I think the crunchiness of the Oreo in the middle of a beautifully soft cake was kind of weird. It wasn't bad, I just didn't like it as much as the regular and really didn't think the addition of an entire Oreo added anything special to it. But it does look cute!

Roxana took this photo of me before lunch. I think a post-lunch photo would have just been me covered in red sauce and cream cheese frosting. It was a delicious meal! I rarely dream about food, but that night I had dreams about those tacos. I have issues.

K's favorite part ended up being the tiny bit of Oreo on top. He also ate the frosting off the top, but wasn't nearly as into the actual cake as he let on the previous night.