It’s Black (and Yellow) Friday, Wichitans! Whether you’re a die hard Shockers fan, a band-waggoner, or a casual fan, it’s celebrating time! WSU’s had a fantastic run in the tournament, and if you’re going to a bar tomorrow, you need something festive to get you to 5:00. So here’s the best yellow cupcake with chocolate frosting recipe (according to the recipe title) I could find. So I present to you, chocolate chip cookie dough yellow cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Yes, they are as decadent as they sound. And if your audience is anyone other than my co-workers, they’ll love these things
I used this recipe. The only thing I did was sub out the egg for 3Tbs of milk – that way you don’t kill off your audience. In my case, though, I kind of wish I’d gone with eggs! ;)
I used a box of yellow cake mix that was “butter” flavor, whatever that means. I followed the instructions for the cake rather than the set amounts of 1 1/3 c water, 1/3 c oil, 3 eggs. In my case, my box said 1 c water, 1/3 c butter, and 3 eggs.
It’s very important that you make the cookie dough balls ahead of time and freeze them all the way through. Some say at least two hours. I made mine Wednesday night and froze them until Thursday night when I made the cupcakes. This worked out nicely, making the recipe less overwhelming.
And finally, I thought a “normal” or can of frosting sounded way too sweet. So I made a slightly tangy chocolate cream cheese frosting.
So, here we go friends!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
Cookie Dough
1 ½ flour
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ c butter
¼ c sugar
½ c packed brown sugar
3 Tbs milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 c mini chocolate chips
Cupcakes
1 box yellow cake mix (or any type of cake mix), prepared as instructed on box
Chocolate Cream Cheese Frostin
8 oz cream cheese
4 Tbs butter, melted
3 c powdered sugar
½ c cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla
dash of cayenne
3 Tbs whole milk or cream or condensed milk (enough to bring frosting to desired thickness)
First, you whisk together the dry ingredients in a bowl. In your mixer, beat the butter, white and brown sugar until smooth. Add the milk, and vanilla. Add dry mixture until incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips until combined. Form into 24 balls, approximately tablespoon size.
Freeze for at least two hours or overnight. If you’re freezing overnight, cover with plastic wrap.
After the dough is frozen:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pan with cupcake paper liners. Mix together the cake mix as instructed. Spoon evenly among 24 cupcake tins, about 2/3 to ¾ full.
Place a frozen cookie dough ball on the top, center of each cupcake.
Bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes. (Yes, 18 minutes. You could maybe pull them at 17:30, but don’t cook over 18 minutes.) Remember, if you insert a toothpick, the cookie dough is in the center. You’re baking the cake AROUND the cookie dough. If you wait for the cookie dough to be cooked through, the cupcake will be over-baked and the center will have cookies in it, not cookie dough.
Remove from oven and let sit about 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to cool.
The centers of mine fell a little bit:
You can make the frosting the night before and refrigerate it. I whipped mine up while my cupcakes were in the oven. My oven cooks really hot along the sides, so I did mine in two batches, giving me over a half an hour to blow cocoa powder all over my kitchen. Many recipes call for melted chocolate, but I like cocoa powder just fine, so I went with a cocoa powder recipe.
I left my cream cheese out on the counter while I mixed up and poured cupcakes. Then I melted the butter over the cream cheese and whipped them together, along with the vanilla. I tossed in a dash of cayenne and slowly added the cocoa and the powdered sugar a cup at a time. Pretty quickly I could tell I’d need milk. So I added that about a tablespoon at a time. I wanted my frosting to be thick enough to stand up on top of the cupcakes.
I was pretty happy with the end product!
If you’re wondering how I made the flags, I simply printed out 24 shocker logos, about ½ the size of a toothpick. I eyeballed this on the screen, and they came out perfect. I got 25 little logos on one Word document page, with spacing between each set of five. You could also measure and print and all of that, but I winged mine, and got lucky!
You take the piece of paper and a piece of tape twice as long as the logo. Sit the logo, face-up on the right end of the tape, lay the toothpick along the left edge of the logo, and pull the tape around the toothpick and over the top of the logo. If you have extra tape, trim it off the edges. I found that I liked the way the flags looked better with the tape extending the length of the logo, rather than cutting off halfway. But, honestly, who’s going to pay that much attention? Well, aside from my nit-picky co-workers.
Here’s one look at the inside of a fairly undercooked cupcake (I had a few in the second batch that didn’t cook enough, so I left them off my platter). I cut this one in half so my sister could see how the inside looked. And, yes, I ate it. And it was good! Super-sweet. I feel like you could actually get away with cookie dough balls about 75% of the size of these. But the cupcakes formed up around the balls nicely, and they’re a treat, so maybe it’s best to go all-in? I definitely think the cream cheese frosting was a good choice
Next time I want to make pumpkin or carrot cake cupcakes with cheesecake ball centers. And probably cream brown butter cheese frosting, sprinkled with nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. Yum!
