The inspiration: Who doesn't like eating cookie dough, whether on its own or in ice cream or as frightening-but-delicious chocolate-covered candies? I'd seen cookie dough cupcakes running around the cupcake blogosphere before, and, as we just happened to have premade cookie dough in our fridge, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to throw some cupcake tribute the Cookie Monster's way.
So - cookie dough cupcakes. :)
The recipe: I used my standard chocolate cupcake recipe, which is from Cupcakes Take The Cake. After spooning the cupcake batter into the muffin tin, I put one small cookie's worth of cookie dough on top of each unbaked cupcake. Then I baked them as usual, and frosted them with chocolate buttercream (my recipe, another "throw everything together and fiddle until it tastes right" model).
The verdict: They turned out great - but really, how could you go wrong with this idea? This chocolate recipe is nice and soft and rich, and the cookie dough kept a sweet, still-mostly-unbaked texture. These cupcakes were just yum, and so simple, too!
What I'd do differently next time: I expected the cookie dough to sink into the middle of the cupcake while in the oven, but it stayed on the top. I might try adding it when the cup was half full of batter, and then covering it and filling the cup the rest of the way up with batter so the pocket of cookie dough would be a bit more in the center of the finished cupcake. No big issues, though.
P.S. You've got to check out these funny cupcakes that Q found.
