Recipe #12 - Chocolate Volcano (OREO) Cupcakes

Would you like to know what the greatest cookbook in the world is?? Well I'll gladly tell you! That would be OREO With a Twist. Every single recipe in this book involves OREOs in some way, shape or form. I've had this cookbook for a LOOOOOONG time. I don't use it very often, though, for a variety of reasons. First of all, I always eat the OREOs. They're so good on their own, why bother baking with them? Second, I can't keep OREOs in my house. (See first reason).

I recently used it to bake something for a coworker. A year or two ago, I went through most of my cookbooks and flagged different recipes I wanted to eventually try. I giggled when I got this one down, because almost every single page was flagged. :) I had the hardest time deciding what recipe to try first. I ultimately ended up on this recipe. For some reason I kept coming back to it. And let me just say - they're delicious, even despite me messing up and changing the recipe. :)

Ingredients:
*1 18.25oz package devil's food cake mix
*1 1/4 cups water
*1/2 c vegetable oil
*3 eggs
*16 OREOs, coarsely chopped (go ahead and get out a few extra, you know you'll eat 'em!)
*1 can vanilla frosting

Mix cake mix, water, oil and eggs in a large bowl with electric mixer at low speed until moistened. Beat 2 minutes at medium speed. Gently stir in remaining OREOs (come on, you know you ate some). Spoon batter into 24 paper lined or lightly greased muffin pan cups, filling 2/3 of the way. Bake at 350* for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted. Remove pan from oven and allow it to cool for about 5 minutes. Then remove cupcakes from the pan and let them cool completely.

Now, for this frosting part... These cupcakes are called chocolate volcano cupcakes because of how the original directions say to "ice" the cupcakes. Let me just say - it does NOT turn out pretty on your first go round. I think you definitely need a batch or two to practice. My first four were quite ugly, in fact. :) I ultimately ended up just icing them on top, and adding some sprinkles. Second, ditch the can frosting. Find a good butter cream icing recipe, and make the icing yourself. That's what I'm doing next time. I decided to follow the recipe instead of my instincts and was highly disappointed with the end result.

ORIGINAL ICING DIRECTIONS:
Fill pastry bag, fitted with rosette tip, with frosting. Gently insert the frosting tip just barely into the top of the cupcake. Slowly squeeze the icing to fill the cupcakes. The end product should look like a volcano - a chocolate cupcake with white icing coming out like lava would.

MY ICING DIRECTIONS:
Don't use can frosting. :) It was too soft and basically melted straight off the cupcakes. I was SO upset by this! Ice the darn things how ever you want! :) Either way, they taste absolutely delish! In my picture below, you can already see that the icing is starting to melt down. It was so sad.



I was really curious how the cupcakes would turn out with OREO chunks in them. The OREO stuf part cooked away and you didn't taste it. The cookies softened up, but stayed in tact to create little pieces of soft OREOs mixed into the cupcakes. Yummy yummy!!!

Good luck on this recipe! I hope it turns out just as good for you.

PS - I will be trying recipes from this cookbook more often. Stay tuned!