Oreos in Cupcakes

Recently, I had a fun mini baking day with a dear friend of mine, who is also not-that-kind-of-a-doctor. We put her beautiful stand mixture to great use making, to begin with, cookies and cream cupcakes as featured on Annie's Eats.

These monsters are some of the tastiest and crumbliest cupcakes I have ever had. All of us--me, her, and our respective husbands--ate them over the sink, too fearful of the generous crumbs to even risk plates. They were magnificent. The oreos added a wonderful texture, and the cream cheese frosting was the perfect creamy topping pulling that whole "cookies and cream" experience together.

We started with just regular oreos in the bottom of the cupcake wrappers. Since I don't really eat oreos, I was surprised to learn that I am a rather apt oreo twister. Not a single cookie was wasted in my twisting attempts.

We tried quartering double-stuff oreos for the batter itself, but the chunks were still pretty big. Next time, I think we'd pulse them a little. The cupcake were obviously phenomenal, but the huge chunks made the batter itself a little unweildy.

Most fellow cupcake makers out there will be familiar with the filling "rule": Generally, you only fill the wrappers between 1/2 to 2/3 full to allow for the cupcakes to rise in the oven. You can throw that rule out for these bad boys; those pre-cooked oreos in them mean they just don't rise as much as your average cupcake. We filled our liners between 75-85% full and they filled out perfectly.

My fellow bakeress had the brilliant idea to pulse some of those extra oreo tops as a garnish. They added a nice crunch to the deliciously smooshy icing.

Believe you me, those cupcakes did not last half a week. The recipe takes a little time, as can be expected with all that oreo prep, but is fairly simple and straightforward, with ridiculously decadent results. If you love oreos, or cookies and cream anything, these cupcakes are for you!

Ease: 8
Taste: 9
Comfort: 9.5