chocolate chip cookie dough mini-cupcakes
To start off our blog, I’m going to share with you the army of mini-cupcakes I made for my birthday last week to share with my family. For the flavor, I chose to mix my favorites with Nick’s favorites and make a fluffy vanilla mini-cupcake filled with gooey chocolate chip cookie dough and topped with a rich chocolate ganache.
The golden vanilla cupcake and rich chocolate ganache recipes are from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. The chocolate chip cookie recipe is from Compassionate Cooks.
To make the cupcakes mini, I cooked them in the mini-pan with mini-liners for 14-16 minutes. My pan is one of the dark non-stick ones, but I’ve been told the shiny aluminum work best. I think this is why my cupcakes were not as fluffy as I’d hoped. Helpful hint: let the cupcakes cool in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely before filling and frosting.
To fill the cupcakes, I used a sharp paring knife to cut cones out of the middle of each cupcake, leaving at least 1/4 inch around the outside. Then I cut the bottom portion off of the cone (so when I place it back on the top of the filled cupcake the tops are mostly flat). I used a 1/4 teaspoon measure to fill each cupcake with the chocolate chip cookie dough, then placed the center back on top and pressed it down. Using the cupcake itself to push the cookie dough into the center works best because the dough usually sticks to your fingers and creates a headache. Alternately, you can use a froster/filler with a wide tip, just make sure the chocolate chips will actually fit through the opening.
To frost the cupcakes, I used a regular table spoon to drizzle it on evenly. You can even let it run over the edges a little for sinfully tempting look :) I typically like to use dark chocolate chips for chocolate ganache, but this time around I used semi-sweet chocolate so it wouldn’t overpower the flavor of the cookie dough.
The end result is a bite-sized cake that tastes like a slice of heaven! Your guests won’t be able to resist eating 4 or more at a time.
Supermarket Tips
- When recipes from a vegan cookbook call for non-hydrogenated margarine they typically recommend Earth Balance. However, Smart Balance Light is also vegan and can be found in more everyday supermarket chains (I live near a Shaw’s Supermarket now and not a Whole Foods).
- For egg replacers, I typically use EnerG, which can be found in many grocery stores and contains several dozen “eggs” per box. It’s basically a powdered starch that acts the same way eggs do in a recipe.
- When buying chocolate for a recipe, in this case the ganache, you can use several different kinds. I like using Tropical Source semi-sweet chips, but brands like Ghiradelli semi-sweet chips are also vegan and probably easier to find in most grocery stores.
