Oreo Truffle Cupcakes with Oreo Frosting

You’ve all seen my Oreo Truffle recipe. Something quick and easy that tastes incredible. Well what happens if you take that, and put it inside a cake? I already had a recipe that I’d used a few times for gooey centred cupcakes.  It works great, rising up around the cream cheese filling. I had a bit of a brainwave to take the Oreo truffles I loved so much and put them in place of the chocolate/cream cheese filling from that recipe (I of course Googled it and realised that I wasn’t the first one to think of it). These cakes are decadent and once they’ve been topped off with a wonderful Oreo frosting they just taste incredible. Coupled with the look of surprise on most people’s faces when they reach the truffle centre. Oreo Truffle cupcakes are born.

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Oreo Truffle Cupcakes with Oreo Frosting
 
Ingredients
  • For the truffles:
  • 250g Cream Cheese
  • 2 x Packets Oreos
  • For the cupcakes:
  • 190g all-purpose flour
  • 200g granulated sugar
  • 64g sifted cocoa powder (for chocolate cupcakes)
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 large egg, cracked into a small cup or saucer
  • 115g unsalted butter, softened
  • 120ml buttermilk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 120ml hot water
  • For the Frosting:
  • 100g Cream Cheese
  • ¾ Packet Oreos (put the others aside for decoration)
  • 100g Powdered Sugar
  • 100g Unsalted Butter
Instructions
  1. Start with the truffles. Obliterate the Oreos, mix in with the cream cheese. Form in to balls and place in the fridge to chill while you make the batter.
  2. Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan) and line your muffin tin with cases.
  3. Mix together the “dry” ingredients; flour, salt, baking soda (and cocoa powder if using). In the bowl of your electric mixer cream together the butter and the sugar.
  4. Mix in the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla extract. Then, alternate between adding the flour and the hot water in three stages. Starting and ending with the flour. Beat on a medium speed until smooth (this can take a few minutes).
  5. Divide the batter out between the cases. The cases should be filled to around ⅘ of the case. Drop a truffle into the centre of each cake. They are fairly heavy, so will probably sink towards the bottom, but make sure you don’t push them.
  6. Place in the centre of the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, until they have risen and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
  7. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack.
  8. While they are cooling, make the frosting. Cream together the butter and the powdered sugar. Add the cream cheese and Oreos and beat together. If you want to thicken it up, add more powdered sugar and more butter if you want it thinner.
  9. Once the cakes have completely cooled, ice them with a knife. Decorate with remaining Oreos.

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Chocolate Chip Cookies with Peanut Buttercream Filling

Peanut butter. It’s back. Yes, I think I have a problem. I’ve been trying to avoid using it for a bit, because so much of my stuff contained it. Then my friend Naomi happened across a facebook group full of recipes and spent an evening posting things on my wall along the lines of “OOOO MAKE THIS” followed by “ACTUALLY NO, THIS!”. The majority of them caught my eye, but I decided they’d be better for an occasion. I picked out something I could do that would be easy to share. Chocolate Chip Cookies with Peanut Buttercream filling. The key with these is to make sure that the cookies are that little bit chewy. It takes them from ordeal, to incredible.

Peanut butter filling

The other problem I had was that they didn’t spread as much as I’d expected. This meant that they ended up a bit tall and bulky. The later ones I baked for a minute or two less, and squashed them slightly with the back of a spoon to make them a little thinner.  Unfortunately I lost the original source for this piece, so I don’t know who to credit.

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Chocolate Chip Espresso Cookies with Peanut Buttercream Filling
 
Ingredients
  • For the cookies
  • 130g flour
  • 88.5g cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 120g unsalted butter, softened
  • 134g granulated sugar
  • 55g firmly packed brown sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 110g chocolate chips
  • 1 tsp instant espresso powder
  • For the filling
  • 256g Powdered sugar
  • 90g unsalted butter, softened
  • 113g Creamy peanut butter
  • (Possibly) 1-2tsp milk
Instructions
  1. Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt) and set aside.
  2. In the bowl of your electric mixer, cream together the butter and the sugars until fluffy.
  3. Beat in the egg, then the vanilla. Add the espresso and beat until combined.
  4. On a slow speed, add the flour mixture in three stages, each time until it has just combined. After the last addition, add in the chocolate chips.
  5. Place the dough in the fridge and allow to chill for at least an hour, for it to firm.
  6. Once you feel it has chilled for long enough, remove from the fridge. Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan).
  7. Divide the dough into two equal sections. On a clean surface, form the dough into two equal rods. Rolling them out until they are around 12 inches in length. If they are shorter than this, don’t worry too much, you’ll just have larger cookies!
  8. Cut up the rods at intervals of about 1 inch.
  9. Place on greaseproof sheets in the center of the oven, around 1 inch apart.
  10. Bake for between 10-15 minutes. You want them to still be soft and chewy so it may be worth testing with one or two to begin with. I started baking them for around 13 and cut it down to 11 in the end. (As I said above, I pushed down some of them with the back of a spoon to make them spread better).
  11. Allow to cool partially before transferring to a wire rack.
  12. For the frosting. Starting on a slow speed, cream together the butter and the powdered sugar. Slowly increase the speed to medium and add the peanut butter. You may find that you need a small amount of milk to make it combine better.
  13. Spread on the top layer of a cookie, being fairly liberal with the amount, and then push down another cookie on top.

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Bearded Cupcakes

This is a recipe from January 2012, so apologies if it’s a bit rusty.

So I had been back from Australia for around a month. I’d made the call to stay in the UK rather than return down under. I was living at home with my parents, and as a result had a lot of time to myself. Any time I didn’t spend job-hunting, was time spent by myself. So I found myself baking a lot. It was January, what else is there to do? It was my friend Siobhan’s birthday (you should check her out, she does awesome Cross Stitch designs, which you can find here), and she’s a bit of a fan of the bearded gentleman.  Thus, these were born.



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Bearded Cupcakes
 
Ingredients
  • Cupcake ingredients:
  • 115 grams (1/2 cup) unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 130 grams (2/3 cup) granulated white sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 195 grams (1½ cups) all purpose flour
  • 1½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 60 ml (1/4 cup) milk
  • Topping:
  • 200g (one large bar) White Chocolate, melted
  • Icing:
  • 110g/4oz butter, softened
  • 170g/6oz icing sugar
  • 55g/2oz cocoa powder, sifted
  • 1-2 tbsp milk
Instructions
  1. For the cakes.
  2. Preheat the oven to 180 °C (16°C fan oven), and line your muffin tray with cases.
  3. In the bowl of your electric mixer beat the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.
  4. Add the eggs, one by one. After each addition, beat well. Beat in the vanilla extract.
  5. Separately, whisk together the dry ingredients.
  6. Put your mixer onto low speed. Alternate between adding the milk and the flour mix. Beginning and ending with the flour, this should be done in 3 additions. Scrape down the sides of the bowl from time to time.
  7. Divide the batter out evenly amongst the lined cases and place in the center of the pre-heated oven. Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  8. Remove from the oven and set to cool on a wire rack.
  9. While they are cooling, you can start on the topping. Take the white chocolate, and melt it. I don’t have a microwave, so use a bowl over hot water. The better quality chocolate, the better results you’ll get. Spread the chocolate out on a sheet of greaseproof paper, until it’s smooth. Place another piece of greaseproof paper on top and sandwich the chocolate between two flat objects. Put it somewhere cool to set.
  10. While this is setting, make the buttercream. Cream the butter, add half of the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Add in the cocoa powder and the remaining icing sugar. Add 1tbsp of milk, only adding the rest if it’s needed.
  11. To decorate, cut out small circles from the set chocolate, using a sharp knife. Stick the circles to the tops of your cupcakes using a small amount of the buttercream. I had to cut the tips off a couple of cakes to make them flat enough.
  12. Pipe on your desired facial hair. I also used a small amount of white piping icing that my Mother had in her cupboards to draw details. I also added silver sugar balls as eyes.


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Cheesecake Gateaux

Engagements. Slowly but surely, all of my friends are pairing off. I’m couldn’t be happier for them. Most recently was my old housemate Richard. He’s been with his now fiancée for almost three years now and they’ve moved away from Leeds, gotten themselves nicely onto their respective career paths  and finally the other week he popped the question. They organised engagement drinks and I of course, offered to bake for them. Something like this is a fairly special occasion, so I wanted to do something a bit more fancy and decadent than my usual, run of the mill, cookies or cupcakes. I decided I wanted to do a high cake, and thus, decided on a Cheesecake Gateaux. Now, cheesecakes aren’t really my forte. I’m great with cakes and the like, but I’ve never done this too often. It prayed on my mind a bit the night before, and when I was placing it between the two cake layers on the morning on the party, it almost ended in disaster. It started to fall apart. When finally assembled though, this cake looks and tastes absolutely phenomenal.

Cheesecake Gateaux

Finishing this off with a simple cream cheese ganache just takes it to the next level. Each slice is excessive and delightful, without feeling like you’ve run a marathon. This needs a fair bit of fridge space, so make sure you’ve got the time and the space available.

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Cheesecake Gateaux
 
Ingredients
  • Cheesecake:
  • 500 g cream cheese
  • 134g raw sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 80ml heavy cream
  • 80ml whipping cream
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • a pinch of salt
  • Cake:
  • 320g Cups white flour
  • 300g White granulated sugar
  • 4 tbsp Cocoa powder
  • 1 ½ tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 354ml vegetable oil
  • 236ml plain buttermilk
  • Ganache:
  • 500 g cream cheese
  • 150g caster sugar
  • 110 g unsalted butter
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 150g Dark chocolate
Instructions
  1. Start with the cheesecake. Preheat your oven to 170°C (150 °C fan). Take a 22cm cake tin, lining it with non-stick paper, wrapping the outside tightly in foil to ensure that the water doesn’t get in. Place this in the center of a high sided roasting tin (or alternatively a larger cake tin).
  2. Beat the cheese until it’s smooth. Add the salt and the sugar, beating for around 5 minutes.
  3. Beat the eggs then add them. Beating well after the addition. Add both creams, and the vanilla, beat until well combined.
  4. Transfer the mixture into the prepared cake tin. Pour warm water into the larger tin, until it’s around ¾ of the way up the cake tin.
  5. Place in the oven and bake for around 40 minutes.
  6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
  7. For the cake. Preheat the oven to 180 °C (160 °C fan) and prepare two 22cm cake tins, lining them with paper.
  8. Combine all the dry ingredients in the bowl of your mixer. Giving them a quick mix.
  9. Create a well in the center and add the wet ingredients: eggs, buttermilk and oil.
  10. Pour into the cake tins, ensuring each of them are a similar amount.
  11. Place in the center of the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a tooth pick inserted in to the center comes out clean.
  12. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack. Once the cakes and the cheesecake have cooled, chill in the fridge.
  13. For the Ganache. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.. Add the cream cheese and vanilla extract and beat until smooth and thick.
  14. Place this bowl in the fridge and allow it to chill.
  15. Once everything has chilled sufficiently, place the bottom layer of your cake onto your cake stand or whatever it is you’ll be using to present it. Then place the cheesecake layer on top and finally the last cake layer. Take half of the ganache and, using a long spatula, cover the cake lightly.
  16. Chill for a further 20 minutes, then cover in the rest of the ganache. Top with the chocolate (I blended it to get it nicely chopped).


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