Cookie Dough Cupcakes

I'm not much of an ice-cream fan (gasp!), but if I do choose to indulge, it's always cookie dough ice-cream, or something equally chunky and sinful.  When I was a kid, I could have eaten an entire batch of raw cookie-dough, and enjoyed it more than the baked version.

Two weeks ago it was my boyfriend's and my two good friend's birthdays.  So I hosted one big party and BBQ to celebrate their births.  I wanted the cupcakes to be epic taste-wise, because I knew I was short on decorating time.  Remember those days when I used to spend hours rolling out fondant, or painting with icing?  I need to stop slacking and get back to that!

Anyway, the cookie-dough cupcakes turned out amazing, and ended up being my personal favourite.  I'll have to ask my regular party-goers to find out the consensus as to which is the best tasting.  However, I'm sure many of them won't remember.

 The cookie dough cupcakes were easy to make!  I simply used my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe, as well as my favourite belgian chocolate cupcake recipe.  I took the cookie dough, rolled them into 1 1/2" balls, and froze them for two hours, then plopped them into the centre of my unbaked chocolate cupcake.  I baked the cupcakes for my regular baking time, and because the cookies were baked from being frozen, it means that they were still soft and gooey, and cookie-dough like in the centre of the cupcake. YUM, I'm drooling right now.

When they were done, they had some serious weight to them.  A tray of cupcakes weighed about 5lbs.

The finished product- and decorating-wise they TOTALLY look like something that came out of my Easy-Bake Oven. Taste better though, and the rolled-fondant letters are slightly more sophisticated.

Delicious cookie dough crater in the centre.

The birthday girls and boy.  Sarah, Mario and Hannah.

It's a Leap Day Miracle!

This post needed a title- it was between this lame one, and "Salty (caramel) Chocolate Balls". I figured the winner was a little bit more family-friendly.


They say that Leap Day is an extra day you get to do things you don't normally have the chance to do. An extra, free day to live out your wildest dreams. It's not a real day, afterall.


That's why I am spending my special Leap Day nursing a wine hangover, while writing this very blog post!

Last night I had a small dinner party. I made homemade gnocchi, which was frigging delicious- but the pièce de resistance was obviously dessert.


I made these super moist Belgian chocolate cupcakes- once cooled, I injected them with a homemade caramel sauce, that oozes out on your second bite, making you deliciously sticky. I topped these babies with a caramel meringue butter cream frosting, then crowned with a piece of homemade salted caramel. That's right I made two different kinds of caramel for this delicious concoction.


Since this isn't a real day, if I eat them all today, it doesn't count calorie-wise, right???