Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

I made these cookies and cream cupcakes for my youngest son's 6th birthday.  According to him, they were a huge hit with his whole kindergarten class!

For me, they were a little too sweet, but I'm not a huge sweets fan.  I'd rather have a big plate of pasta for my birthday.... but I digress!  These are not hard to make; and they are an easy way to dress up otherwise plain cupcakes.  So if you know someone who enjoys sweets... this might make a great surprise!  The frosting ends up tasting suspiciously like the cream filling that you find inside the Oreos, if you are into that.  LOL

I can imagine these made into red velvet cake as a sweet Valentines treat! 

Print this Recipe! 

Ingredients:

Cupcakes - 

• 1 box of devil's food chocolate mix 
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup vegetable/canola oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 12 mini Hershey's Cookies and Cream bars
• 12 Oreos crushed

Frosting - 

• 1 pkg reduced fat cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 6 cups powdered sugar
• 3 Tbsp milk
• 6 Oreos, processed/crushed into very small crumbs 

Topping/Garnish - 

• 12 Oreos, cut in half
• Miniature Hershey's Cookies and Cream bars, cut apart into bricks
• Oreos cookies, crushed without the icing filling 

Step-by-Step:
Mix your favorite brand of dark chocolate cake mix as directed on the box, with the addition of a teaspoon of vanilla.

1 box Devil's food chocolate cake mix  +  3 large eggs at room temperature

1 cup water  +  1/3 cup canola oil  +  1 tsp vanilla  (I'm using clear Mexican vanilla)

Now here is our standard cake batter...

Here's what makes it special....

We are going to add in chunks of Hershey's Cookies and Cream bars as well as crushed Oreos.  These are great jobs to let the little ones help with while you are preparing your batter.

12 mini Hersheys' Cookies and Cream bars, broken into small pieces  +  12 Oreos, crushed.

Mix them into the prepared cake batter as soon as you are finished making the batter.

Scoop the batter into cupcake liners and bake as directed.  Don't over bake!  You don't want them to get dried out.  The boxed mix typically makes 24 standard sized cupcakes, but with all the extra ingredients added in, I ended up with 27 cupcakes.

You can see bits of that white chocolate oozing from the tops of some of the cupcakes.   I used paper liners inside of these foil liners.  I didn't want the cupcakes to have any trace of that metallic taste.

Now lets make the frosting.

We're going to make a basic cream cheese frosting with the addition of finely crushed Oreo crumbs.

6 Oreo cookies, with the icing removed, then crushed very fine.  If you don't crush them small enough, they will clog up your icing press or piping bag.

While you have a small person helping with those cookies, let's do the icing. 

Cream together 1 8oz package of reduced fat cream cheese, softened  + 1 stick of butter, softened.

Add 1 tsp vanilla  + 2 cups powdered sugar  + 1 Tbsp milk and combine on low. 

Alternate the remainder of the powdered sugar and milk until you have used a total of 6 cups powdered sugar and 3 Tbsp milk.  This proportion worked for me, but adjust to your liking.  Then fold in the cookie crumbs.

This is my final frosting. 

Pipe the frosting onto the completely cooled cupcakes.

Garnish with Oreo halves, a small brick of a mini Hershey's Cookies and Cream bar, and additional dusting of finely crushed Oreo crumbs.

I sure hope you enjoyed this recipe!  If you are curious as to other things I have in my recipe collection, hop on over to my Recipe Index and have a look.  There are hundreds of recipes there, and almost all have step-by-step photos to guide you through!  I've just started putting together a new page called Filmstrips for pinning where you can see whole recipes in just a glance!  If you hover of the photo, the name will come up.  You can click the photo to go directly to the recipe.  Please keep in mind that it's still in the "construction" phase. 

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Here are some bonus recipes for you.

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Written Method: 

Mix your favorite brand of dark chocolate cake mix as directed on the box, with the addition of a teaspoon of vanilla.  Into the prepared batter, we are going to add in chunks of Hershey's Cookies and Cream bars as well as crushed Oreos.  Mix them into the prepared cake batter as soon as you are finished making the batter.

Scoop the batter into cupcake liners and bake as directed.  Don't over bake!  The boxed mix typically makes 24 standard sized cupcakes, but with all the extra ingredients added in, I ended up with 27 cupcakes.  You can see bits of that white chocolate oozing from the tops of some of the cupcakes.   I used paper liners inside of these foil liners.  I didn't want the cupcakes to have a metallic taste. 

Now lets make the frosting. 

We're going to make a basic cream cheese frosting with the addition of finely crushed Oreo crumbs.  If you don't crush them small enough, they will clog up your piping bag.  Cream together softened cream cheese and butter.  Add vanilla, powdered sugar, and start adding milk, combining on low.  Alternate the remainder of the powdered sugar and milk until you have used a total of 6 cups powdered sugar and 3 Tbsp milk.  This proportion worked for me, but adjust to your liking.  Then fold in the cookie crumbs.  

Pipe the frosting onto the completely cooled cupcakes.  Garnish with Oreo halves, a small brick of a mini Hershey's Cookies and Cream bar, and additional dusting of finely crushed Oreo crumbs.