Inspired yesterday by Main Street Cupcakes and educated by the Cake Mix Doctor cookbook that I thumbed through at Costco, I decided that “H” was going to be for “Half Baked” instead of “Hostess”. Converting a cupcake to another cupcake isn’t that imaginative, right? Half Baked is a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor that consists of a swirl of chocolate and vanilla ice cream laced with chunks of brownies and chocolate chip cookie dough. In a word, it’s “YUM!”
Ben and Jerry's Half Baked: Stolen from somewhere....
For the chocolate and vanilla ice cream, I used Cooks Illustrated recipes for Dark Chocolate Cupcakes and Yellow Cupcakes. For speed, I used 2 eggs instead of 1 egg and 2 egg yolks. I didn’t think the yellow color was really necessary and figured there was enough going on in the cupcake that no one would notice the small bit of fat missing. I scooped vanilla batter in half the cup and chocolate batter in the other half.
Half and Half Batter: click to enlarge
For the cookie dough filling, I cheated. Maybe I should have made my own cookie dough, but I didn’t want a huge batch of cookie dough around the house in addition to a couple of pans of cupcakes, so I used frozen Nestle Toll House dough. (Ok, so I still have half a pack of frozen dough in the freezer…but that’s beside the point.)
Cheater Cookie Dough Filling
I broke the frozen dough apart (as suggested by the Cake Doctor) and mushed it down into the batter. It should be used completely frozen so it won’t cook all the way. Otherwise, you’d end up with a cookie in a cupcake, not dough in a cupcake.
Half and half batter with dough mushed in: Click to enlarge.
I baked at 350 for 20 minutes and ended up with this:
Hot cupcakes, fresh from the oven: click to enlarge
After they cooled down a bit, the centers fell and I ended up with this:
Half Baked after cooling: Click to enlarge
While the cupcakes cooled completely, I made a Chocolate Italian Meringue Butter cream using Warren Brown’s recipe that I found here. My butter might have been closer to melted than room temperature, so I had to let the icing chill for a bit before I could scoop it out.
Ben and Jerry’s also contains brownie bits. I cheated again…since I didn’t need a whole pan of brownies… and used frozen brownie dough.
Nestle Toll House Mini Brownie Bites
I baked a few of the brownie bites, then cut them into little chunks to use as garnish. If I make these again…and I will… I’ll try to make a brownie crust on the bottom.
Finished Half Baked Cupcake: Click to enlarge
Mr Shuck and I both liked these a lot. He liked the 2 different flavors of cake and thought the icing was silky and creamy and not too sweet. I think the icing tastes like room temperature chocolate ice cream, if that could exist in a non-liquid form. I would have liked to have gotten more brownie incorporated, but I think I’d need a baking assistant for that. “H” is definitely an improvement over “G”.
The Cupcake Addict's Cupcake Collection 