Cookie Filled Mini-Cupcakes

Through some weird circumstances that I can't quite remember, I now have a subscription to Everyday Food Magazine.  An offshoot of the domestic conglomerate that is Martha Stewart, Everyday Food provides many fairly simple recipes and a ton of pretty pictures to entice you to try them.

The first thing I made was a "Tandoori-Style" chicken, which, while good, was not very "tandoori-style" at all (I guess it was a yogurt marinade, so that makes it tandoori?).  But the one recipe I was really looking forward to trying was the Cookie Cupcakes with Raspberry Fluff Frosting.

I'm not a big cupcake person in general, but a cupcake with an Oreo cookie inside (I love Oreos!)?  I had to try it.  I also had to miniaturize it (cause everything is cuter when it's smaller).  I followed the cake batter recipe exactly, but I used a mini muffin pan with mini Oreos as filling.

The chocolate cake in this recipe is okay.  Probably not better than my go-to Hershey's chocolate cake recipe, but still passable.  I like the Oreo cookie center in these cupcakes.  During the baking process, the cookie absorbs a lot of moisture, and it becomes soft and slightly chewy.  However, it appears Oreos are more buoyant than I expected.  They kept rising to the top of the cupcake instead of staying nicely sandwiched in the middle.  Perhaps this is only an issue for the mini cupcakes (something to do with the cookie to batter ratio?), but it was quite annoying.

The icing is made up of marshmallow fluff with a little raspberry jam added in.  I used some of the leftover rasberry jam from my adventures in canning.  The hint of raspberry goes very well with the chocolate flavor of the cake (plus it makes the frosting pink).  Unfortunately, I completely over mixed the frosting and basically beat out all the whipped lightness of the fluff.  The result was a sticky and dense icing that still tasted fine (it kind of reminded me of melted strawberry ice cream), but made for quite a mess.  I sprinkled some pink sanding sugar on top of my iced cupcakes to give them a little more visual appeal, since I couldn't create a nice voluminous top with my deflated frosting.

Cupcake Stats:
Cake:  Buttermilk chocolate cake with oreo filling
Icing: Raspberry, marshmallow fluff with pink sanding sugar decoration

Overall, these cupcakes were pretty fun.  I'm already considering the possibility of using other Nabisco cookies (like Chips Ahoy and Nutter Butters).  I think with a few tweaks, these cupcakes could be real winners.

Daily Monku:  As a kid, Nick-at-Nite (Nickelodeon's late night programming that plays re-runs of classic sitcoms) was my means for discovering many classic seventies television shows like Happy Days and The Brady Bunch.  As time has gone by, Nick-at-Nite has modified its programming by bringing in newer series to the schedule.  Recently however, I learned Nick-at-Nite has added Friends (original run 1994-2004) to its nightly line up.  My only response: way to make me feel old Nick-at-Nite.