Today was an experiment in turning two different objects into one delicious dessert. As you well know, I love cupcakes, but every Halloween, I make a dirt cake. And I love dirt cake, it's gelatinous and sugary and diabetic coma inducing. All my friends will eat until they're sick if I let them. So today, after finding NO help on the inter-nets finding a way to make my dirtcake into cupcakes, I decided to try to make it on my own. I had all the regular dirt cake ingredients on hand since I'm going to make a dirt cake next week, so I started with that and some Devil's Food cake mix I had in the cabinet. Here's what I did:
- Split about 24 oreos, (enough to line the bottom of your cupcake tins. I made 24 from one box).
- Use the half with the icing and line the bottom of your cupcake tins. Crush the other halfs in a food processor or smashed in a plastic bag.
- Mix the cupcakes according to the box, but before pouring it into the cups/tins, I mixed in about half of the crushed crumbs into the batter and mix well.
- Divide into the cups and cook according to the box's instructions. Once cooled, trim the tops of the cupcakes to a flat top for icing. Afterward, cut holes into the top of the cupcakes. I used a size 12 icing tip and punched holes and then used a 1/4 tsp scoop to take out the centers. (These make great snacks!)
- Meanwhile, prepare the mixture for the centers:
- 4 oz. of cream cheese
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1/2 confectionary sugar
- 1 3 oz package vanilla pudding mix
- 1 3/4 cups of milk
- 6 oz of Cool Whip or other chilled whipped topping (needs to be chilled and not canned)
- Cream cream cheese, sugar, and butter.
- Mix pudding, milk, and cool whip in another bowl, then add into the first mixture. Continue mixing until it is a pudding type consistency.
- Spoon this mixture into a piping bag and then pipe into the center of the cupcakes.
- Afterward, pipe frosting onto the top of the cupcakes and then sprinkle the rest of the crushed oreo over the top. I used store-bought butter cream frosting and colored it with gel food coloring to make them green.
I decorated these with some candy bones I bought from Target just to give it more of a graveyard feel. They aren't exactly like dirt cake, but it's really good and creamy in the inside with a crunch on the bottom. If you bake them up, drop me a line and tell me what you think -- or if you have any tips for fixing the flavor, let me know!
Ja ne!
