Icing – ohdenny

I was thinking of something new to bake one day and I trawled through pages and pages of different cupcake ideas and recipes until eventually I found a recipe with Oreos in it. However, that particular one used a chocolate cake base which I preferred not to as I wanted to avoid a chocolate overload. So onwards I searched for the perfect Oreo cupcake recipe with icing and subsequently I found a recipe from Cook With Manali which looked absolutely beautiful that I had to give it a try. Spoiler alert: This were seriously addictive.

Oreo Cupcakes with Cookies & Cream Frosting (Cook With Manali Recipe)
Makes: 16-18 cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup granulated white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups Oreos (broken into small pieces) + 16-18 Oreo halves
2 eggs, at room temperature

Cookies & Cream Frosting
115g cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup (170g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3- 3 1/2 cups icing sugar
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
2-3 tbsp heavy cream or milk
1 cup Oreo crumbs (crushed in a blender & then strained)

Mini oreos for decorating the cupcakes

Method

Oreo Cupcakes
1. Line a muffin pan with cupcakes liners, set aside. Preheat the oven to 175 C/ 350 F degrees (Depends on your oven as I have mine at 150 C for most baking)

2. In a bowl sift together all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

3. In the steel bowl of your stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment or using hand mixer, beat the eggs and both the sugars together till creamy & pale in colour, around 3-4 minutes.

4. Add oil, vanilla and mix until combined.

5. Start adding the flour mixture and buttermilk in batches. Add the flour first, combine then add the buttermilk. Add the flour mixture in 3 parts and buttermilk in 2 parts, starting and ending with flour.

6. Mix the batter till everything is well combined but do not over mix.

7. Fold in the broken Oreo pieces, stir and combine.

8. Place an Oreo on the bottom of each cupcake liner or twist the Oreo and put one cookie at the bottom of the pan with cream side up.

9. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full and bake for 15-20 minutes on until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Mine were done in 16 minutes at 150C)

10. Cool the cupcakes on wire rack before frosting them.

Cookies & Cream Frosting

1. Crush Oreos in a blender/food processor to get Oreo crumbs. Strain or sieve if needed to get rid of any bigger chunks.

2. Using your mixer, beat butter and cream cheese together until smooth and creamy.

3. With mixture at low speed, add 1 cup of icing sugar. Mix until it’s incorporated with the butter and cream cheese and them beat it at high speed for 30 seconds. Add the remaining sugar and mix.

4. Add vanilla and cream/milk and mix.

5. Add Oreo crumbs and beat till frosting is smooth and creamy.

6. Frost the cupcakes and decorate with mini oreos.

Notes

These are vanilla Oreo cupcakes, you can make chocolate Oreo cupcakes using cocoa powder in the batter.
Adjust the consistency of the frosting according to your preference. Add more cream for a spreading consistency, more sugar for thicker consistency to pipe flowers etc.
You can use milk in the frosting but cream adds a wonderful rich flavour so if possible please use heavy cream.
Do not over-bake your cupcakes. Keep an eye on them after 15 minutes.

Impressions

I made this for my Buddhist community celebration earlier this year and the feedback was very positive! One thing to note though was that I prepared the frosting earlier in the day and then popped it in the fridge, and I forgot to take it out again to leave it at room temperature and as you can see the frosting I made initially does not look like the end result! I over whisked the frosting and consequently the frosting turned from what was a beautiful cookies and cream frosting where you can see the white cream and chocolate cookie crumbs to a completely chocolate frosting, so please be cautious of this when making the frosting.

Other than that, I do suggest reducing the sugar, I reduced it by a third from the original recipe and I found it a bit too sweet still because the Oreos are already ridiculously sweet as you have the base as Oreos plus the Oreo pieces in each cupcake. I haven’t tried just using 1/4 brown sugar but next time I’ll give it a go and update.

What I love about these cupcakes was the broken Oreos in the cake for some bite and also the half Oreos for the base that give it a cheesecake-like crumb base. Plus, the vanilla cupcakes itself are so moist and light. The use of oil instead of butter really makes such a difference!

My sister gave me a link to a Red Velvet Cupcake recipe from Amy’s Food Adventures, in which she has adapted her recipe from the Food Network Canada. Apparently, I’m her guinea pig for recipes she finds. We had a gathering coming up and I thought, why the hey.

I had Red Velvet cupcakes a couple of times, the most famous one being Magnolia’s in New York and that was pretty darn good actually.

I was pretty interested in this recipe because it lacks butter, I’m assuming that’s the case with all Red Velvet cupcakes but I was keen to try it out after I realised that.

This recipe uses a lot of red food colouring. A bit more than half of the food colouring bottle to give it that vibrant red colour.

I made a couple of tweaks to the recipe to my liking, with **. With the icing, I found it to bit a tad plain, so I added more lemon juice and zest to it to give it a really nice freshness to the whole cupcake and icing. The icing was pretty much a trial and error so I can’t remember the exact measurements, but if you want it slightly more lemony just keep adding some more juice until you feel it’s right.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes
Yield: 24

Ingredients
Red Velvet Cupcakes
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups of sugar (375 ml) *3/4 cup to 1 cup*
1 1/2 cups canola oil (375 ml)
1 cup of plain yogurt (250 ml)
2 tablespoons red food coloring (30 ml)
1 teaspoon vinegar (5 ml)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (5 ml)
2 1/2 cups of flour (625 ml) *plain flour for cakes*
1 tablespoon cocoa (15 ml)
1 teaspoon baking soda (5 ml)
1 teaspoon salt (5 ml)
Icing
2 cups mascarpone (500 ml) *can use cream cheese too*
1 cup icing sugar, sifted (250 ml) *1/2 cup to 3/4 cup*
1/2 cup 35% cream (125 ml)
Zest of 1 lemon and *lemon juice*

Directions

Red Velvet Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 350 °F (180 °C).
In a food processor, mix the eggs with the sugar, oil, yoghurt, food coloring, vinegar and vanilla. Add flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Blend until just incorporated.
Place cupcake papers into a muffin pan, divide the batter in the cupcake papers, pour only halfway so batter doesn’t overflow, and bake, rotating half way through, for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove and let cool.
Icing
In a bowl, beat the mascarpone, icing sugar, cream and lemon zests together until the mixture is smooth.
Spoon a dollop of mascarpone cream on the cupcakes. *I piped mine onto the cupcakes so if the icing mixture is a bit too running or soft to pipe, just place it in the freezer or fridge until it hardens up a bit.*

I was extremely happy with this recipe. The cake was so moist. My first batch of small ones were a bit undercooked so it was a bit more ‘redder’ then I would have liked, but it tasted great. My second batch in the oven was slightly darker and looked great. This recipe is definitely a keeper.