So, for the other half of my Valentine’s Day present to my boyfriend, I made some mini oreo cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting. Again, my decorating skills leave something to be desired. I think that if I’d put more sugar into the frosting, it might have held up a little better and kept its peaks, rather than kind of getting melty looking. Either way, I thought it tasted great, so I didn’t worry overly much about it holding its shape. These cupcakes are adopted from a 24 cupcake recipe. 24 cupcakes would have made something like 48 mini cupcakes, and that was just too much cupcake for me. So, I reworked the recipe to make 24 mini cupcakes (or 12 cupcakes if you don’t want to deal with minis). The rich frosting really helps these cupcakes, because they have a kind of dry texture to them. Anyway, they turned out pretty tasty.

Ingredients for Cupcakes:

1 1/8 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 egg whites
slightly less than 1/2 cup milk
6 oreo cookies, crushed

Ingredients for Cream Cheese Frosting:

8 ounces cold cream cheese
5 tablespoons butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners’ sugar, measured and then sifted

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line mini muffin tin will baking cups.
3. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.
4. In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream together the sugar and butter until fluffy.
5. Then beat in the vanilla extract and egg whites.
6. Using small amounts of each, alternately add flower mixture and milk to the sugar mix. Try not to mix too vigorously.
7. When the batter is incorporated, stir in the crushed oreos until distributed throughout.
8. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins using teaspoons, until just below the top of the lining.
9. Bake for 13 - 15 minutes for mini cupcakes and 15 - 18 minutes for regular cupcakes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
10. Cool the cupcakes on a wire rack.
11. While the cupcakes are cooling, assemble the frosting by beating the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until combined. Then, gradually add the confectioner’s until incorporated. You can continue to add further sugar until the frosting is sufficiently sweet for your taste.
12. Frost the cupcakes (if you want to get fancy and use a piping bag, go right ahead, but they’ll probably taste as good without.

As a bonus, here is a photo of the David’s cupcakes. He had a lot of fun decorating them in funny patterns, even though I was just doing the normal old swirl. :) We waited a day to frost these, so the wrappers were kind of coming off. Anyway, they still taste just as yummy!

Enjoy!