Cookies & Cream Cupcakes With Oreo Cream Frosting

I like to bake cupcakes for fun. When I have a craving for one cupcake, I’ll bake twenty four. 😆 The eating part is satisfying, but the making-of is pure bliss. Perhaps it’s the feeling of creation that keeps me going and going back despite knowing there’ll be a mountain of dirty baking stuff to be washed later.

I made and photographed these Oreo cupcakes a year ago. As you can tell, my piping skills were really lacking haha. Also, back then I hadn’t bought a standing mixer yet and each time it was a disaster creaming the butter and sugar, or mixing in icing sugar with a lousy hand mixer from Taobao. The lowest speed was on TURBO, sending butter, sugar, flour all over the place. I bought a mixing bowl with a lid from IKEA, but even that didn’t make life much better.

Anyhoo, what I’m saying is that it is possible to make cupcakes without a standing mixer. A proper handheld one is actually good enough since you’re not making large quantities.

The original recipe from Cupcake Jemma uses 2½ packets of Oreo cookies. I like to be precise and set off researching ‘how many Oreo cookies are there in a packet’ 😆 . Apparently, different number of Oreo cookies are packed for different countries. Some contain 12, some 16, some 20. I used 12 for this recipe. I also reduced the sugar content and used skimmed milk instead of whole milk. More details on changes made under Notes at the bottom of this post.

Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

25 mins

Total time

55 mins

INGREDIENTS

Cupcakes

85g self-raising flour
25g malt powder
15g cocoa powder
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ tsp salt
125g caster sugar
135g unsalted butter (room temp)
2 eggs
1½ tbsp skimmed milk
¼ tsp vanilla extract
12 Oreo biscuits

Frosting

200g unsalted butter (room temp)
400g icing sugar
1½ tbsp skimmed milk
¼ tsp vanilla extract
9 Oreo biscuits (crumbed)

DIRECTIONS

Line a cupcake / muffin tin with cupcake liners (recipe makes 12 cupcakes) and preheat the oven to 170C, fan.
Sieve together flour, Horlicks malt powder, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and caster sugar in a mixing bowl.
Add butter and eggs and mix on a medium speed. Once well combined, add skimmed milk and vanilla extract and mix for a further minute. When I made these for the first time, I mixed the batter by hand. Yes, with only a whisk and pure brute strength. >.<"
If you fancy, place one whole Oreo cookie at the bottom of each cupcake case. (I did this and I'd rather not the next time coz it's too sweet!)
Fill the cupcake case ¾-full with the mixture.
Place in the oven to bake for about 20-25 mins or until a cake tester stuck in the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack while you make your frosting.
Place butter in your mixer and beat for about 5 mins on a medium speed until the butter is pale and fluffy. If you don't have a mixer like I didn't, just use another mixing bowl. The mixing time will take longer than 5 mins, of course.
Add in half of the icing sugar and mix until combined. Repeat with the second half of the icing sugar and mix for a couple of minutes. Turn down the mixer to a slow speed and add the milk and vanilla extract and mix until combined. This is the most labor-intensive part without a good mixer.
Fold in the Oreo crumbs. I crumbed my Oreo cookies in a food processor for about 10 seconds. You can also put them into a Ziploc bag and bash them up with a rolling pin.
Put the icing into a piping bag and pipe onto your cupcakes.

NOTES :

Below are edits made to the original recipe.

For cupcakes:

Horlicks brand Malt powder
Skimmed milk instead of whole milk
12 Oreo cookies in place of '2 packets'
Normal, medium sized eggs instead of 'large free range eggs'. Eggs sold in Singapore are pretty safe. :)

For frosting: