Little bits of Cookie Dough, right in your Cupcake, make an awesome combination

Step 1: Ingredients for Cupcake

2 2/3 Cups Flour
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Baking Soda
¼ tsp Salt
1 Cup of Softened Unsalted Butter
1 ½ Cups Brown Sugar
3 Large Eggs
1 Cup Milk
2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
Cookie Dough. *You can make your own, but it’s a lot easier if you just buy a package of chilled Cookie Dough, with no Eggs in the ingredients.

Step 2: Preparing You Mini Cookie Dough Balls

Using half of the Cookie Dough package, roll small balls in your hand and place them on a plate. They should be bit size or about an inch in diameter. Place in freezer until rock solid.

Step 3: Make the Cupcakes

First, preheat your oven to 350F and line your Cupcake pans with foils

Sift Flour, Baking Powder, Baking Soda, and Salt in a bowl and set aside.

TIP : Sifting may sound like another step, but if you don’t, you could end up with little clumps of flour and that is not pretty, nor does it taste very good. I have a picture to show why you sift. There will be some left over clumps that you would not want in your batter.

In another bowl, cream the Butter with the Brown Sugar. If you have a hand-mixer (I don’t, hence why I entered in this contest :) mix on medium-high speed for about3 minutes until light and fluffy. Or, do it the old fashion way like I did with a spatula for about 5 minutes.

Add one Egg in at a time, completely mixing it together before you put the next Egg in.

TIP : Sometimes when I crack an Egg, I put it in the bowl, but if the Egg is bad, you’re whole batter is bad, and you will have to start again. So what I do is crack the Egg and place it in a small bowl and examine it before adding it to the mixture.

Measure your Milk and Vanilla Extract in another bowl.

Add about ¼ of the Flour mixture to your Butter/Sugar mixture and beat to combine. Then add about 1/3 of the Milk/Vanilla mixture and keep alternating starting and ending with the Flour mixture.

Place 3-4 frozen Cookie Dough Balls to the bottom of the foils.

Scoop your batter into your foils. I like to use an Ice Cream Scoop, but if you don’t have one, fill the foils ¾ of the way full, about two Tablespoon will do. This should use up all the batter.

Add a few more frozen Cookie Dough Balls to the top of your Cupcakes.

Bake for about 25-30 minutes. Keep in mind, everyone’s oven is different, so you’re going to want to keep an eye on them and when it’s about the 25 minutes mark, get a toothpick and push it in the middle of a couple of Cupcakes and if the toothpick comes out clean, your Cupcakes are ready.

Step 4: Making Mini Cookie and Frosting

Ingredients for the Brown Sugar Frosting
1 Cup of Softened Room-Temperature Butter
¾ Cup Brown Sugar
3 ½ Cups of Icing/Confectioners Sugar
½ tsp. Salt
2 Tbsp. Milk
1 tsp/ Vanilla

Combine Butter and Brown Sugar together, and cream on medium-high speed using a hand mixer. If you don’t have one, you have to cream it until the Brown Sugar has almost dissolved in the Butter, otherwise the frosting will be gritty.

Gradually add the Icing Sugar until it is smooth

Add in the Salt, Milk and Vanilla Extract until it is combined.

For the Mini Cookies, use the other half of your packaged Cookie Dough and roll into little balls and place on a baking sheet and bake them as instructed on the back of the package. Remove and let cool for about 10-15 minutes, then place on the top of your Cupcakes.