Cookies & Cream Cupcakes: Halloweenified

At book club last month, I signed up to bring snacks to this month's meeting. Turns out, I double booked myself and was unable to attend October's meeting to discuss The Five People You Meet in Heaven, by Mitch Albom. I was super bummed, because I was looking forward to talking about the awesomeness that is always in Mitch Albom's books. However, I did end up sending some super fun, tasty and festive treats to the meeting with a friend.

Yup, that's a Halloween Oreo baked  into the bottom of the cupcake! I browsed through my Cupcakes board on Pinterest and realized I had pinned various versions of cookies & cream cupcakes...5 times. I obviously need to tone it down. Anywho, I got the delicious cookies and cream frosting recipe from Kristan at Confessions of a Cookbook Queen. That specific post has a pretty funny prelude to the actual recipe. Check it out.

I used a Yellow Cake Mix to bake the cupcakes, following the directions on the box. Before putting the batter in the tray, I placed one Oreo in the bottom of each decorative liner. I baked the cupcakes until just golden on the tops, where the cake is sponge-like when touched. Once cooled, I frosted them with the cookies & cream frosting. Want a lick?

Here's what you do to make a big batch of orange speckled cookies 'n cream frosting:

4 sticks salted butter, softened
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
8 cups powdered sugar
15 Halloween Oreos, crushed very finely

Beat butter, cream and vanilla on medium-low until smooth and well-combined. Slowly add powdered sugar. Once powdered sugar is barely mixed in, increase speed to medium-high and beat for 2 minutes. Fold in crushed Oreos. This will be enough if you plan on piping tall mounts of frosting on each cupcake. If you don't, I would suggest halving the recipe.

Tip: If you are wanting to pipe a super tall, bakery-esque piles of frosting onto the top of these cupcakes, just like Kristan did and I had hoped to, you must obey the line that specifies the Oreos be very finely crushed. Why, you ask? If you do not, the frosting will not be able to squeeze out of a Wilton tip because a cookie chunk will be barricading a pretty frosting swirl from settling on your beautiful cupcakes. I learned that the hard way and had to settle for spreading the frosting with a knife. Sigh.

If these had been for an actual Halloween event, I would have tried to think of a creative name for them, like Goblin Dirt Cupcakes and dyed the batter orange for a full on Halloween treat. Or maybe I would have bought one more box of Oreos so I could have crushed some up into bigger chunks into the batter to have speckled cupcakes. Next time! But, since these were for book club and I was crunched for time, this is what they got.

There were reports that these beauties were a big hit at book club, which is what this was all about anyway.  Can't wait for November's meeting!

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