cookies and cream cupcakes

so my friend david purchased a gigundo cupcake pan for me, knowing of my love to bake– i am not kidding, this thing is bigger than my head and i have been waiting for a perfect occasion to use it. later this week, i have such an occasion, however i wanted to do some cupcakes on a much smaller scale first, set the tone for the week. it was decided. this sunday’s treat would be cupcakes… but what kind?

i decided that i wanted to do cookies and cream, but not having a recipe and it being too late in the day to start researching, i decided to wing it (which i tend to do fairly often). i made a ridiculously good triple chocolate cake a few years ago that i used a crushed cookie base on, so i decided to do that here as well…

i traditionally use famous chocolate wafers for this, but since i was going for cookies and cream here, i of course used crushed oreos. next, in went the chocolate fudge cake batter, and into the oven they went! i must say, i was quite pleased with the way the base came out, though i think next time i will make them a little bit thicker…

before i realized that i was quickly running out of minioreos, i had added a little extra treat in a few  [o:

so, there i was with the cupcakes. i knew what had to be done next, but i have to admit i was afraid i hadnt let them cool long enough (it was already getting late though!), and that they would fall completely apart when i tried to perform this delicate surgery…. they looked so innocent… little did they know they were about to undergo a dangerous lobotomy to be performed by a klutz of a surgeon. but, as the saying goes “off with their heads!”, or rather “out with their middles!”  from here, it was just a matter of not making a mess, and well, if i did it could be cleaned up. the worst of it was over, i had 12 perfectly intact, excavated cupcakes. in went the icing and the cookie crumbs!!! ah, good as– no, better than– new!

and now comes the fun part… and i say fun because inevitably there will be plenty of icing all over my hands, and when i am all done decorating, i get to lick it off. mmmmmmmmm!!!! in any case, once i got about halfway in, i realized that i didnt have nearly enough icing. 9pm on sunday evening is not usually the best time to realize this. that, however, seems to be the worst thing that happened here, so i would call this a wild success!

and now, to cut one open and see if they were as handsome on the inside as they were on the outside… YULP!!!