Our cupcake contributor, Lauren of EllenJay Events, is here with a decadent new recipe….
Calling all chocolate chip cookie lovers! Or should I say cookie dough lovers? I’d like to introduce you to the ultimate cupcake to satisfy both a chocolate and cookie craving all in one bite! These Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes have just become the new favorite cupcake at our house and I hope you will enjoy them just as much! It’s chocolate cake, filled with cookie dough, covered in cookie dough frosting, topped with chocolate chips and a mini cookie dough cookie on top! Do you think there is enough cookie dough involved? Oh my goodness these are so yummy, I ate three in one day!
These cupcakes start out with a simple and super moist chocolate cake recipe. The recipe is so easy you don’t even need to use a mixer, just whisk all the ingredients together by hand. Next comes the fun part…we are going to fill the center of the cupcakes with cookie dough. It’s going to be a little surprise inside once you take a bite! The best part, is that the cookie dough doesn’t contain any raw eggs, so feel free to snack on it all you want as you fill the cupcakes. To hollow out the center of the cupcakes you can use a cupcake corer or apple corer, either one will do the trick. Then grab a melon baller and scoop some cookie dough into the center of each cupcake. If you don’t have a melon baller, just grab some dough and roll it into a ball with your hands.
To make the cookie dough frosting I thought the logical place to start was with the basic ingredients used to make chocolate chip cookies. So looking at the back of the bag of Nestle Toll House morsels I started combining the butter, sugars, flour and vanilla in a bowl, omitting the eggs, salt and baking soda. I then added in some confectioner’s sugar and milk to create a fluffy frosting. This icing flavor is truly an exact replica of cookie dough. My fingers kept sneaking back in the mixing bowl to sample, it was just that good!
So if your pantry isn’t already stocked full of chocolate chips like mine is, then hurry out and grab a bag because you are going to want to make these immediately! This is such a fun recipe that your kids would absolutely have a blast helping you with!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes
recipe by Lauren Kapeluck
(makes 28 cupcakes)
For the Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line muffin pans with cupcake liners.
- In large bowl combine all dry ingredients: flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk until well combined.
- Add oil and sour cream and mix together with whisk.
- Gradually add water and continue to whisk.
- Add vanilla and eggs and whisk until combined.
- Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full with batter.
- Bake for 16 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
- Let cupcakes cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove to wire racks to finish cooling.
- Once cupcakes are completely cool, hollow out the center of your cupcakes using a Cupcake Corer or Apple Corer.
- Fill centers will Cookie Dough and frost with Cookie Dough Icing. Garnish with chocolate chips and a mini Cookie Dough cookie.
For the Cookie Dough filling:
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
- In bowl of stand mixer beat butter, sugar and vanilla until creamy.
- Gradually add in flour and sweetened condensed milk and mix until well combined.
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- If dough seems too sticky, put in refrigerator to set up for about 30 minutes before filling cupcakes.
- Fill center of cupcakes with Cookie Dough. I used a melon baller to get a consistent size ball for each cupcake.
- Roll out the left over cookie dough using a rolling pin and cut out mini cookies using a small circle cutter. Chill the dough cookies until they are firm and then use to decorate the tops of the cupcakes.
For the Icing:
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup milk
- In bowl of stand mixer cream butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar together for 1-2 minutes until creamy.
- Gradually add in flour and confectioner’s sugar mixing well and scraping down sides of bowl.
- Add milk as needed to reach desired consistency.
- Mix in vanilla.
- Continue to mix icing for 3-4 minutes.
- Place icing in piping bag fitted with large round tip and swirl on top of cupcakes.
- Sprinkle mini chocolate chips on top if desired.
I hope you all enjoy these Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes! I highly recommend adding a scoop of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream on top of these cupcakes! You know, just in case there isn’t enough cookie dough already!
This will now be the ONLY chocolate cupcake recipe I use! So good! I must confess though that I did use a different recipe for both the filling and the icing. But the cupcakes themselves…DIVINE!!
What adjustments would you make for high altitude?
I’ve been looking for a cookie dough icing recipe, and your icing looks better than I could image. I’ll be trying your recipe out soon. Thank you!
I tried to make these and they came out horrible!! I followed the recipe exactly, but they still tasted really bad.. The cupcakes were bland and the filling had a horrible texture as well as taste.. I didn’t even try to make the frosting. What a waste of ingredients 🙁 I was so looking forward to these
These were actually really gross…I was really dissapointed. I loved the cake part but the icing was really disgusting.
I would love to make these! But could you give me the recipe in grams please?
Thanks!
I love recipes from scratch, I was wondering if the APF could be substituted with Cake Flour?? I ha e some and would like to use it,
thank you
Your cupcakes look awesome and sound delicious! I will be making them on Easter for the whole family.
Note: I use the cupcake corer for the filling and it fits in the hole perfectly.
I just made these for a friend’s birthday and brought some extras to work with me. They were a megga hit! My daughter asked if I could make them for her birthday. I noticed someone asked if you could make this into a cake…I’m going to try it, but was wondering if anybody else has yet?
Are the cookies on top, cooked or shaped out of the icing?
I added too much milk to the frosting and made the well for the filling to shallow because I’m a n00b with more experience with cookies haha. Even though, these were sooooo yummy!! Co-workers ate them up! Definitely making them again and, hopefully, it’ll be better next time.
How many cupcakes does this recipe make??
Made these today and they turned out great! I live at a high altitude as well so I was happy with how they turned out 😀
I just made these for my daughter’s birthday party and they were a hit! They were delicious and I will definitely make them again! Thanks for the recipe!
The cake and cookie center were excellent. The frosting… gritty and tasted like flour. 🙁 I would make again, but definately use a different frosting.
Can this recipe be used to make a vanilla flavor?
I made these yesterday. After I made the cake batter I was worried because it seemed very water like. So I added a box of pudding. They turned out amazing. I made the dough filling as directed which was very good. I only added 1 and a half cups of flour to the icing instead of 2 and a extra splash or two of whole milk to the icing also. These are super rich! I could only eat one. But they are really good! My kids loved them. My husband also took them to work and they were a big hit. If you love cookie dough these are perfect. This recipe made about 30 cupcakes for me with the added pudding box.
Great recipe! I used boxed cake because I’m lazy, so I can only comment on the cookie dough and frosting. I got mixed reviews on the cookie dough. Everyone liked it, but about half said there was too much of it. They suggested to leave out the balls in the middle, which means less work next time and only half the recipe. People loved the frosting. I used (what I thought was) a lot of frosting, but I still had 2 cups extra.
Little tip for the flour: make sure to microwave flour until it reaches 160F. Raw flour can carry Salmonella and E. coli.
Hello! We attempted to create these Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes and it was horrific! Personally, I would not waste your time trying to conquer this dessert. It took us all day to make the cake, filling, and icing, none of which worked out. The icing was very VERY gritty, and everything we tried to fix it didn’t help one bit. The filling was okay at first but then minutes later became hard and crumbly. The cake we thought turned out great, until we tried it. The cupcakes had a very odd smell to them and tasted even worse. We followed the directions letter for letter and still ended up with a monstrosity. If I could rate this recipe, I would give it 1 out of 5 stars! Do not attempt! It is a complete waste of time.