Devil's Food Cupcakes with Cream Cheese

This summer, Little Lawyer wants to perfect her dessert making technique instead of her sleeping until noon technique, or her eating chicken nuggets and pop tarts until she blows up technique. She originally wanted to hone her infamous "I'm SOOOO Bored!!!" summer battle cry, but I quickly suggested the 'make desserts yourself every week over summer break' thing before she could think of something worse.

She picks what she wants to make. She makes 'em. We eat 'em.  Deliciousness ensues.

She made a special Fathers Day dessert yesterday, as I mentioned in yesterdays post about our Fathers Day dinner. Never fear! She will return this Friday with her regularly scheduled dessert-of-the-week post.

These cupcakes were super easy since they are made from a mix.

The ingredients were simple:  Devil's Food cake mix, eggs, water, oil, sugar and cream cheese.

Heat your hot box to 350 and line your muffin tins with paper liners.  Combine the cake mix, eggs, water and oil for the batter.

Fill up your liners about 2/3 of the way full.  She went a little overboard...

Combine the cream cheese and sugar in another bowl. Put all of the cream cheese mixture into the corner of a medium sized gladlock bag. Snip off a small portion of that corner so you can pipe.

You can pipe letters, numbers, designs...whatever. Multi-occasional cupcakes, these are! LL decided to display her wishes for a happy Fathers Day. Or Happ Yfat Hers Day. With her, you just never know...

Learn from my idiocy:  Pipe small. She (we) piped the letters a bit too big and they really got lost in the cupcake. It didn't help either that the liner were a little too full. But we touched up the letters with the remaining cream cheese once the cupcakes were out of the oven and completely cooled, so they looked just fine!

Devil's Food Cupcakes with Cream Cheese

1 box Devil's Food cake mix
3 eggs
1-1/3 cups water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar

Heat oven to 350. Place paper baking cup in each of 24 regular-size muffin cups. In large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil and eggs with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Divide batter evenly among cups (2⁄3 full).

In small bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar with electric mixer until smooth. Spoon into corner of small ziplock bag. Snip about 1⁄8 inch off one corner of bag. Pipe mixture onto batter in a small designs or letters to
decorate tops of cupcakes.

Bake 20 to 23 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from
pan to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 30 minutes. Make any adjustments or corrections when completely cool.

Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes

This summer, Little Lawyer wants to perfect her dessert making technique instead of her sleeping until noon technique, or her eating chicken nuggets and pop tarts until she blows up technique. She originally wanted to hone her infamous "I'm SOOOO Bored!!!" summer battle cry, but I quickly suggested the 'make desserts yourself every week over summer break' thing before she could think of something worse.

She picks what she wants to make. She makes 'em. We eat 'em.  Deliciousness ensues.

This week she picked Oreo Cheesecake in cupcake form. Really easy to make and even easier to eat one or seven...

Gather the goodies: cream cheese, eggs, sour cream, Oreos, vanilla, salt and sugar. Preheat the Hot Box to 275.

Line 2 cupcake tins with paper liners and put one Oreo in the bottom of each liner.  This should leave you with about 12 Oreos left....

All that pent-up, nine year old aggressive energy pays off with those extra 12 Oreos, a ziplock, and a can of veggies! She picked a can of veggies she doesn't like to sort of drive the point home. Poetic justice? Heh.

Beat that cream cheese! Then add the sugar and mix like crazy. Vanilla goes in next. Viva, Vanilla!! She has always wanted to stick a straw in the vanilla bottle and drink it straight.

Crack the eggs in a small bowl. LL is one of the best egg crackers I know. She hasn't gotten the one-handed method down yet, but by the end of the summer, I bet she'll be an eggs-pert at it.... Ha! Beat the eggs slightly and add into the big bowl-o-yummy a little bit at a time.

Beat in the sour cream and salt. Stir in the crushed Oreos by hand. Don't eat them, either...she's watching. Trust me, I know...I was busted more than once here.

Fill up the liners almost all the way. Put them in for 12 minutes and then rotate the pans and cook another 12 minutes.

Let them cool completely and refrigerate for a few hours until chilled, but if you have incredible, rock-like willpower (and I so commend you if you do!), leave them in the chill box overnight.  It is situations just such as these that make me wonder why time locks don't come standard with your fridge...

Betcha you can guess exactly what LL and I had for breakfast the following morning....Muhahaha! Well, we were out of pop tarts, after all.....

Disclaimer:
Please consume responsibly. Oreos, as well as cheesecake, are known to be highly addictive. Little Lawyer will not be held responsible if you try this recipe and become addicted. Just sayin'....


Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes

You'll need:

4 (8-oz) packages of cream cheese, room temperature

4 large eggs, room temperature

1 cup of sugar

2 tsp of vanilla

1 cup of sour cream

1/2 tsp salt

1 package of Oreo cookies (24 for the "crust" and any leftovers for crushing)

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line regular sized muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup. Place extra cookies in a ziplock and crush. Set aside.

With an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.

Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in crushed cookies by hand.

Divide batter evenly among cookie-lined cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake for 12 minutes. Rotate pans and cook about another 12 minutes until filling is set, about 24 minutes total. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate at least 6 hours and up to overnight before serving.