Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

"There's nothing a cupcake and coffee can't solve."
~Marie Williams Johnstone

"I absolutely love making chocolate chip cookies. I mean, it's fun. It's exciting. Beyond the fact that I love making them, I love eating them."
~ Debbi Fields

I would like to take a moment to thank two very important women in the history of civilization:  Eliza Leslie and Ruth Graves Wakefield.

Not familiar with these two enlightened souls? For shame!

The earliest documentation of the term "cupcake" can be found in Eliza Leslie's seminal work, Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats, published in 1828. Yes, cupcakes were around before that, possibly as early as the late 1700s, but Ms. Leslie chronicled the sobriquet we know and love.

Ruth Graves Wakefield owned the Toll House Inn, in Whitman, Massachusetts. Toll House. Yes, that's ringing a bell in your head, isn't it? Ms. Wakefield's very popular restaurant featured home cooking and her cookbook, Toll House Tried and True Recipes, published in 1936, included the recipe for "Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie". The first chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Without these two women the world would be bereft of cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies.

Take a moment to think about that. And to thank them.

Of course, anyone who has made chocolate chip cookies has eaten the cookie dough. And this is a bit of heaven, dropped by large spoonfuls, in itself. Perhaps all the more so because we are so often admonished today with warnings of avoiding eating anything containing raw eggs. But eat the raw dough we do. And we love it. 

Cupcakes.

Chocolate chip cookie dough.

Who it was that first decided to combine these two pieces of bliss I do not know. But that person, inspired by divine insight or blessed with the clumsy luck that also gave us Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, also holds a special place in my heart.

Enough rambling. On to the recipe.

The cupcake is a basic chocolate cupcake that is so ridiculously simple to make (you mix in a blender) that it is almost unbelievable how good it is. The eggless cookie dough is completely safe to eat. The frosting, the pièce de résistance, is simply amazing. It tastes just like cookie dough.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes
Cookie Dough Filling:

(This is an egg-free recipe and therefore safe to consume raw!)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
4 Tbs (1/2 stick) butter
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbs white sugar
2 Tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and salt.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the butter, sugars, milk and vanilla. 

Stir in the dry ingredients.

Add the chocolate chips. 

Refrigerate this dough for about 20 minutes, or until firm. Scoop out dough in heaping tablespoon scoops and place it on a cookie sheet. You will want 12 balls of cookie dough.

Freeze until firm, at least 30 minutes. This helps keep the cookie from baking, and remain soft dough, when you bake the cupcakes.

Cupcakes:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup oil (I use olive oil)
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375° F. Line a cupcake tin with 12 liners. 

Place the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda and salt in a blender. Blend to combine. 

Add the water, oil, egg and vanilla. Blend well, scraping down the sides as needed. 

Divide the batter evenly between the 12 cupcake liners. 

Drop a ball of frozen chocolate chip cookie dough into the center of each cupcake.

Bake the cupcakes 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cupcake portion of the cupcake, and not through the center where the cookie dough is, comes out clean.

The balls of cookie dough have been hidden away by the rising of the cupcake batter!

Cool the cupcakes completely before adding the frosting.

Frosting:
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) salted butter
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 Tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium bowl, combine the butter and sugars, mixing until smooth and creamy.

Mix in the flour, milk and vanilla and continue to mix until all is well combined.

When the cupcakes are cooled completely, it is time for assembly.

Frost the cupcakes with a knife or spatula. You want the frosting to resemble a dropped cookie, so avoid covering the cupcake completely or making it too smooth.

Sprinkle some chocolate chips on top and press them slightly into the frosting to complete the look of an uncooked chocolate chip cookie.

What you get are a dozen delicious chocolate cupcakes filled with chocolate chip cookie dough and topped with what looks and tastes like an uncooked chocolate chip cookie! Delicious!

Pear and Ginger Muffins

"It is, in my view, the duty of an apple to be crisp and crunchable, but a pear should have such a texture as leads to silent consumption."
~Edward Bunyard

I tend to cook and bake for and from emotion. I like the feelings that the aroma of cooking or baking evoke in my mind, the sentiments that the mixture of colours can induce, and the passion that the tactile sensations of working with my hands stirs up. I can alter my mood, turn sadness into a mellow joy, or fortify a feeling, making the comfort of home feel more like Home, by making something in the kitchen. Some of these emotions are inherent within things like kneading bread or the smell of freshly milled grain or the feel of butter on my hands. Others are produced through the discovery of something new, the fusion of familiar things into an unfamiliar but very pleasing creation. A first-time elation. This recipe was one of those moments for me.

I love both the delicate, syrupy sweetness of pears and the hot, fragrant spice of ginger. And with these muffins the balance is just perfect; neither overpowers the other. The pears' juiciness make these muffins incredibly moist and infuse the crumbs with flavour and the ginger adds a wonderful edge that works to enhance, rather than hide, the pears' sweetness.

Pear and Ginger Muffins
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2  tsp baking powder
1  tsp ground ginger
2/3 cup sour cream
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups peeled and chopped pears, about 1/4-inch dice
6 tsp raw/turbinado sugar

Preheat the oven to 400º F.

Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper muffin cups.

Combine the flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, and ground ginger in a large mixing bowl.

In another bowl (or large measuring cup), whisk the sour cream, oil, honey, and eggs together.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

Add the diced pears.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Sprinkle each one with 1/2 tsp of the raw/turbinado sugar. (If you do not have raw/turbinado sugar you can use more brown sugar here instead.)

Bake at 400º F for 20 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.

Apple Fritters

As Carl Sagan (almost) said, "If you want to make an apple fritter from scratch, you must first create the universe."

What the heck's a fritter anyway? Basically a fritter is any kind of food coated in batter and deep-fried. Kind of like a doughnut. Except a fritter is not a doughnut, because there is a main ingredient that the dough is holding together.

And fritters can be different things to different folks.

Here in the United States, fritters refer primarily to small "cakes" made with a main ingredient (such as apples) coated in a batter and either pan-fried or deep fried. Apple fritters are pretty common. As are corn fritters. Some fritters are hiding in plain sight; crab cakes are fritters, they are just a little more pretentious.

Across the Pond, fish and chips can be accompanied by fritters. Like a pineapple fritter, which is a pineapple ring dipped in batter and deep-fried. They go nicely with the deep-fried fish and deep-fried potatoes.

Throughout Asia you can find fritters using exotic sobriquets such as cucur (Malaysia), a-kyaw (Burma), gorengan (Indonesia), and tempura (Japan), just to name a few.

I have even heard rumours that they eat some kind of corn fritters in Australia, but I've been too afraid to ask the few Aussies I know for details.

The making of an American apple fritter is fairly easy and quick.

Apple Fritters

1-1/4 cups flour, sifted

1 Tbs sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup milk
1 Tbs oil (I use the olive variety)
1/4 cup finely grated cheddar cheese
3 to 4 firm apples

Powdered sugar, for dusting

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a bowl.  

In another, large bowl, blend the eggs, milk and oil.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients all at once. 

Mix in the cheese. 

Mix it all together until just moistened.

Pare (fancy-pants speak for peel), core and cut the apples into matchsticks (about 3 cups).

Stir the apples into the batter.

Drop the apple mixture from a tablespoon into a pan of deep fat heated to 375º F. Fry each batch 3 to 4 minutes, or until puffy and golden, turning once.

Drain well. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Serve warm. 

This makes about 8 to 10 fritters.

Baked Eggs with Goat Cheese and Spinach in Bell Pepper Rings

"All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast."

~John Gunther

I really wanted to call these Goat Cheese and Spinach Quiche in Bell Pepper Rings. But let's be honest, this is not a quiche. Sigh. Neither is it an omelet, nor a frittata, nor a strata. I could have gone with œufs dans les poivrons verts. But that is getting carried away.

The girls were hungry and it was time for breakfast. Looking through the refrigerator I found eggs, a bag of fresh spinach, several bell peppers and some goat cheese.

I had no desire to make an omelet, but wanted something fun.

Ah, inspiration!

The concept was simple enough: slice the bell peppers into one-inch slices, beat the eggs, mix in the spinach and cheese, and bake until perfect.

The execution was a little more complex, but not very much so.

6 large eggs
1 large bell pepper
1 cup of fresh spinach leaves
4 ounces of goat cheese
Salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

Slice the bell peppers into one-inch rings - go for four rings. Coarsely chop the spinach. Crumble the cheese. Beat the eggs with a small amount of water (less than a table spoon per egg used).

Place the bell pepper rings on a griddle on low heat (about 250° F) or a frying pan on low. Drizzle a small amount of vegetable oil into each ring. Pour the mixed eggs into each ring with just enough to completely cover the bottom of each ring with about 1/8-inch of egg. Let it cook until the egg is well set.

Transfer the bell pepper rings to a baking tray covered in baking parchment. Fill the bell pepper rings about halfway with eggs, then add generous amounts of spinach and crumbled cheese. Fill the bell pepper rings up to almost the top with eggs and add more spinach and cheese. Season lightly with salt and pepper.

Place in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until eggs are set.

Let the little œufs dans les poivrons verts, I mean baked eggs in green bell peppers, cool for a few minutes.

And then enjoy!

This recipe is easy to scale up or down and the easy prep of chopping, crumbling and mixing can be done well beforehand to make this a quick breakfast treat.