Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

So this all started when me and a girl I work with (who happens to be pregnant) started talking about cupcakes.  Before it was over with, we had both convinced me that I needed to make this.

To start, you need to whip up some chocolate cupcake batter.  I prefer my recipe that I have finally figured out for myself, so here it is again if you need it.

Chocolate Cupcake Recipe
2 cups room temperature unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 box instant chocolate pudding
1 1/2 cups milk

When filling your cupcake liners, fill them slightly over half-way full.  If you fill them like normal and then add the cookie dough, your cupcakes will over-flow when they bake.

Now, for your cookie dough, you are more than welcome to mix that up from scratch.  I bought a tub of cookie dough and used that. ;)

I used a half tablespoon and scooped out the cookie dough and rolled it into a ball.  Place it in the center of your cupcakes and push down slightly.  Your cupcakes will bake up around the cookie dough.

Bake these at 350 degrees for about 15-16 minutes.  You don't want to over bake these and the cookie dough will settle in the middle when you take them out, so don't panic.

Cookie Dough Frosting
3 sticks butter
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
3 tablespoons milk
2-3 teaspoons vanilla
chocolate chips for garnishing, if desired

I don't usually prefer the taste of alot of butter in a frosting recipe, but for this, it worked well.  If you don't like the butter at all (which I usually don't), feel free to substitute it with shortening.

Top your cupcakes with the frosting and chocolate chips, and you're good to go!

Motocross Helmet Cake

Ahh, I loved making this cake!  It was so fun and I was so excited to do this!  This is a motocross helmet birthday cake.

For the helmet, I used two 6-inch round pans and half of the sports ball pan.  I stacked them and then chilled them so that I could carve out the face.  Just carve it smooth down the front.  Then, using rice crispie treats, I made the mouth piece.  Then, I covered the cake in buttercream and MMF.

For the visor, I used red gumpaste and had it sitting to take the shape that I wanted.  I almost hit panic mode because it didn't set up and get hard.  Not sure why - it just wasn't working out.

So, I had a brilliant idea. :)  I took a piece of clear plastic from a package of stencils I had in my cake cabinet, washed it and cut it out in the shape of the visor - leaving a couple inches on the end extra.  I stuck that end into the cake and laid the gumpaste over it.  YAY!  It worked!

For the design on the helmet, I just mixed up a little black gel food paste coloring with some vanilla extract and painted it on.

Halloween Ghost Cupcakes

Just as I did last year, I had to make cupcakes for my boyfriend's niece and nephew's Halloween party!  This year, I used an idea that I seen in Betty Crocker's Easy Fall Entertaining magazine.  (That magazine also has some awesome dinner recipes.  Yum.)

I made vanilla cupcakes and topped them with orange buttercream.  Then, you just take a dum dum sucker and stick in the middle of the cupcake.

For the ghost, cut out 2 1/2' circles from fondant and just drape them over the suckers.  Then pipe on some "Boo"s and some eyes.

Way cute.  And these were so fun!

Baby Rump Shower Cake

I was so excited to do this cake!  I couldn't wait!  I love the baby rump cakes and I love zebra cakes.  This cake has both!

The cake also has three flavors.  The bottom 10-inch cake is oreo cake.  The middle 8-inch tier is red velvet cake.  The top layer is half of the sports ball pan and it's white cake.  The entire cake is covered and decorated with MMF.

Hello Kitty Birthday Cake

This is a Hello Kitty themed birthday cake for a little girl.  It's white cake covered and decorated with MMF.

I used a template printed from Google for the shape of the head and bow.  The rosettes around the bottom are also made with MMF.

Buzz Lightyear Cake

This cake was made for a co-worker for her son's birthday.  It's chocolate cake covered and decorated with   MMF.  The figurines are toys.

It's a Monkey Party!

My friend Tiffany asked me to make not one - but TWO cakes for her niece's birthday party.  She wanted her to have her own cake

The first cake I finished up was the cake for the little girl.

This is a 6-inch round cake covered with MMF.  It's topped with a fondant cell phone and some texting lingo.  The monkey on the front of the cake is also made with MMF.

This is the cake for everyone else.  I will admit, I got slightly carried away and made the fondant monkey too big for this cake.  Haha.  It still turned out cute, though.  At least I think so.

Skeleton Cake

This cake was made for a co-workers birthday.  I had so much fun with this.

I used two half-sheet cakes and stacked them on top of each other.  I made oreo cake (again - if you haven't noticed, it's one of my favorites).  I then covered the entire cake with black tinted buttercream.

To make the skeleton, I printed a skeleton onto a piece of paper (I got the skeleton from Google).  I then placed the skeleton paper under a piece of wax paper.  Using white chocolate, I traced the skeleton.  It only took several minutes to set up.  Once it was dry, I just placed the pieces of white chocolate onto the cake.  The party had is fondant.

Fall Wedding Cake

This cake was made for a fall-themed wedding.  Once again, I was sent a picture and tried my best to duplicate it.

The cake is marble cake covered in MMF.  The leaves and rope borders are all made with MMF as well.

Hummingbird Birthday Cake

For this cake, I was asked to make a hummingbird.  I was sent a picture, and tried my best to duplicate it.  Even though I didn't get it exactly like the picture, I was pleased with it.

The cake is chocolate decorated with buttercream.  I made the head and beak with fondant.

Cheerleading Birthday Cake

I was sent a picture of a cheerleading cake to make for a little girl's 10th birthday.  I was pretty much told to make it look nice and use the colors black, white and silver.  Here's what I did.

I made the number 10 with gumpaste. The rest of the cake is covered and decoarted with MMF.

Call of Duty

This is a Call of Duty themed cake.  It's an 8-inch round cake covered in MMF.  I just mixed the different colors of fondant and rolled them out to get the camo look.

25th Anniversary Cake

I was sent a picture and asked if I could make a cake very similar to it for a 25th anniversary party.  This is what I ended up with.

The colors were black, white and silver.  The entire cake is covered and piped in buttercream and the roses and bows are made with fondant.  The cake itself is lemon cake.

Monster High Birthday

I am combining two cakes for this one post because I made back to back Monster High birthday cakes for two different little girls.

 This cake was the first one. This is oreo cake covered and decorated with MMF.  I printed out the shape of the skull online and used it to cut out the fondant skull.  I then used an edible/icing marker to draw on the eyes and the nose.

I really liked the color combination of this cake.  I think it turned out really cute. :)

This cake is white cake covered and decorated with MMF.  I used the same idea on the skull, using a template that I printed.  Once again, I used then icing marker for the eyes.

I also made some cupcakes to go with this cake. :)

Icecream Cone Cupcake

I have been dying to try this.  And I assumed it would be easy - just bake a cupcake in the icecream cone, right?

To start, I wanted to put my Neopolitan Cupcakes inside of these.  It seemed like a fabulous idea.  When I was filling them, I filled them up to about 1" from the top.  DO NOT DO THAT! haha With that recipe that I used, I recommend going no higher than 2/3 of the way up from the cone.  I think it will really depend on how your cake batter rises, so even take a test run if you have to.

What happens when you over fill them, is that they run over, of course, and then your icream cone has cake batter running down the side of the cone, causing the cone to get gooey.  It's not good.

So take your time with these and test out your batter on a couple of cones first.  That's my recommendation for these, especially if you're using a made from scratch recipe.

After all was said and done, they were cute.  I personally didn't care for the icecream cone. lol

To transport them, I placed them in a small clear plastic cup and surrounded them by M&M's to hold them in place.

Anniversary Cake

I was asked to make an anniversary cake and make it similar to the Neopolitan cake that I made previously, minus the strawberry.

So the cake is alternated with white, chocolate and then white cake.  The buttercream is alternated opposite of that - chocolate, vanilla, and chocolate.  I also thought it would look more classic if I tinted the chocolate buttercream black.

Football Helmet Fun!

I'd like to apologize again because I have been slacking, so I'm going to play catch up with my cakes again. *haha*

I bought the plastic football helmet pan and was dying to try it - mostly because I hadn't used any of the plastic pans yet.  Not to mention, we love football.

To start, I made a WVU helmet cake for the opening game of the season.  It's chocolate cake decorated in buttercream.

This turned out to be a pretty big deal for people.  I will admit that this was a very easy cake to do.  So if you want a helmet cake and want it to be easy, I would go for this pan. :)

The very next weekend, I made this for my buddy, Dan, at work.

I had so much fun making both of these, even though I am a hardcore WVU fan. ;)

Mustang Cobra Cake

I was asked to make a Mustang cake for a friend for her boyfriend's birthday.  She also asked me to make the "cake" with brownies instead of cake, because he doesn't like cake.  I was a little nervous about it, but it worked out.

Using 4 boxes of brownie mix, I made two 11 x 15 inch brownies (by putting two boxes of mix per pan).  I let them cool.

I also printed a template of a snake and drew it larger on a piece of poster board.  I cut it out at the size big enough to fit on my "cake."

With the brownies stacked, I cut around the outline of the snake.  This is what it looked like.

Then, I covered the "cake" in buttercream and let it set.

Next, I covered the cake with gray MMF.  Then, by looking at the template I printed, I "drew" on the details of the snake with black buttercream.  I was pretty pleased with the outcome. :)

Guitar Cake

So, this is my first attempt at a guitar cake.  And I have to admit - it's one of my favorite cakes so far!  I had so much fun making this because it was so different.

This cake was made for my friend's boyfriend - who is a local performer.  I tried my best to make it look as much like his guitar as I could.  My friend supplied the cake board for the cake.  It's a laminated board with pics.

I wanted the shape of this cake to be right, so I used one of my boyfriend's guitars to cut out a pattern.  Then, I downsized it to cut out the cake.

Then, using another sheet cake that I cut, I added the neck of the guitar. Then some buttercream for a crumb coat and I was ready to roll!

The entire cake is covered in MMF.  Then, using vanilla mixed with gel paste food coloring, I mad edible paint and painted the cake.  It turned out great and it smelled sooooo good. Haha.  Finally, after I thought about it intensely, I decided to pipe on the strings with buttercream.  It was the most intense piping I've ever had to do.  All in all the cake turned out great!

Candy-Themed First Birthday

I was asked to make a cake for a 1st birthday using a "candy" theme.  After all was said and done, here is what I came up with.

The cake was also multi-colored on the inside to match the them.  All of the candy is real, even the suckers.

And of course, I had to make a smash cake to match...

I had alot of fun making this cake.  :)

Baseball Wedding

I was asked to make a cake for a friend of mine who is getting married on a baseball field.  She wanted white cake with red laces.  I also did oreo cake with oreo filling and decorated the cake with buttercream.

Neopolitan Rose Cake

So, the newest cake sensation online seems to be this Neopolitan Rose Cake.  I first seen this cake on IAmBaker.net and I just loved this cake.  I had to try it for three reasons: 1) I thought it looked amazing; 2) I thought the flavor would be delicious; and 3) I recently bought some cake stands that I still haven't had the chance to use yet.

Instead of using boxed cake mixes, I made everything from scratch.  I get more satisfaction out of my baking that way.  If you follow these recipes, you will have enough cake and icing for TWO of these cakes.  If you only want one cake, you can just cut the recipes in half, use the left over batter and whip up some Neopolitan cupcakes, which are equally delish, or freeze your other cakes for another day. ;)

The main purpose of this post is to share my recipes for these cakes and icings with you, and to show you this awesome cake.  Hope you enjoy. :)

Chocolate Cake

2 sticks butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 small box instant chocolate pudding
1 1/2 cups milk

Using your stand mixer or electric mixer, cream together butter and sugar.  Mix in eggs, one at a time. I also go ahead and toss my vanilla in here. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, cocoa, salt and pudding mix.  Starting with the dry mixture, add about 1/4 of it to butter mixture and blend it in.  Next, blend in about 1/4 of milk.  Keep alternating with the dry mixture and the milk until well blended.

This will make two 8-inch round cakes.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

For this next part, I used the classic white cake recipe from wilton.com, with a few adjustments.  This is enough batter for both the white and strawberry cake.

White Cake

6 cups flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
3 sticks butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons vanilla
12 egg whites

Using your mixer, mix the butter and sugar.  Add the vanilla.  In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. In another separate bowl, add your twelve egg whites.  Mix with a mixer until nice and fluffy. With your two cups of milk ready, start adding the flour mixture to the butter mixture and alternate it with the milk until well blended.  Add in the egg whites.

This yields about 12 cups of batter.  In two 8-inch round pans, add three cups of the batter to each one.  Bake at 325 degrees for approximately 35-40 minutes.

We will use the left over batter for the strawberry cake.

Strawberry Cake

White Cake Recipe Above +
2 teaspoons strawberry extract*
pink food coloring, as desired

Add in the strawberry extract and food coloring.  If you want a more intense strawberry flavor, you can always add more.  Fix it how you like it. :)

To add the roses to the cake, you will need three different flavors of buttercream icing.  In all of my buttercream recipes, I use Crisco (shortening) instead of butter.  Alot of people don't prefer the shortening, so for these recipes the shortening can easily be replaced with butter.

Chocolate Buttercream

1 cup Crisco (shortening)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 tablespoons milk

In a mixer, blend the Crisco, cocoa powder and vanilla.  It may take a few minutes to cream together.  Slowly add powdered sugar and milk.  You can always add more milk or sugar to reach the consistency you want.

Classic Buttercream 
*You need two of these recipes for this, if you are doing two cakes.*

1 cup Crisco (shortening)
4 cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoons vanilla extract
milk, as needed

In a mixer, blend the Crisco and vanilla.  Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, until well blended.  Add a teaspoon of milk at a time, if needed, to reach proper consistency.

Strawberry Buttercream

1 cup Crisco (shortening)
4 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons strawberry extract*
milk, as needed

In a mixer, blend the Crisco, vanilla, and strawberry extract.  Add powdered sugar, one cup a time until well blended.  Add a teaspoon of milk at a time, if needed, to reach proper consistency.  If you want a more intence strawberry flavor, add more strawberry extract.

Once your cakes are cooled and leveled, you can start stacking them and adding the roses.

Start with the chocolate cake and add some chocolate buttercream.  Add the strawberry cake and some strawberry buttercream.  Then, add your white cake on top.  You can do a crumb coat of the icing first if you want, but it's not necessary with this icing.  It will stick just fine to the cake itself.

Now, using piping bags and a open star 1M tip, pipe on your roses.  It doesn't have to be perfect and it will only take a few minutes.

Cut, eat and enjoy! :)

It's Yo Gabba Gabba time!

My boyfriend's niece just turned 3 and she told me she wanted a Yo Gabba Gabba cake.  Foofa is her favorite, so this is the cake we decided on.

This cake is marble cake from a box mix and the entire cake is covered and decorated in MMF.  The letters with the name, Claire, are made of gumpaste.

Overall, I was pleased with the cake.  It turned out rather cute. :P

Angry Birds

My boyfriend's nephew, Connor, turned 6 and wanted an Angry Birds birthday cake.  He picked on out online and showed me what he wanted.

The cake is marble cake made from a box mix.  The entire cake is covered in MMF and the decorations are also made of MMF.

I made some of the angry birds, as well as some of the pigs. :P

Overall, I think Connor really liked it. 

Purple Wedding Cake

My friend at work recently got married and I made her wedding cake for her.  She found a picture of what she wanted online, so we went with that.  Even though the pics looked like the cake was a dark blue, it was actually a dark purple.

It was not easy dealing with a cake this large in this awful humidity and heat, but it still turned out nice.  I was very pleased with the final result.

The entire cake is covered in fondant and decorated with edible pearls, real ribbon, and gumpaste calla lillies.

At the wedding, it was so hot that the cake ALMOST melted.  But everyone loved it anyway. :)  Shew... Haha.

Oreo Cupcakes - Yummm.

My boyfriend absolutely loved that oreo cake I made his brother for Father's Day, so I was peer pressured into making cupcakes.  haha  Plus, I had some fabulous cupcake liners I was dying to use for something.

They were deeeee-lish.  I found some recipes online, and combined a little from each to get what worked for me. Even though I've gotten more comfortable with making all of my cakes from scratch, this is what tasted best.   Here is the recipe:

1 - pkg Devil's Food Cake Mix (Pilsbury is my favorite)

1 - pkg instant chocolate pudding

1 - tsp kosher salt

2 - tsp pure vanilla extract

1 - cup sour cream

1 - cup vegetable oil (I always use canola oil)

4 - eggs

1/2 - cup warm water

2 - cups chocolate chips

Bake at 350 degrees 25-30 minutes for a cake or about 18 minutes for cupcakes.

The icing I used is basic buttercream with crushed up oreos.  For my buttercream recipe, visit my Recipes page. :)  Enjoy!