Erin: Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Cupcakes

For my next baking attempt I decided to go with Cookies and Cream Cheesecake(pg 104) because it was in the Simple and Sweet chapter and frankly I wasn't in the mood to tackle frosting.
The recipe calls for 2lbs of cream cheese. Now in case all of you didn't know that is four 8oz boxes which I totally knew right off the top of my head and did not have to Google to find out. Nope.

Then it says you will need a chocolate and cream cookie but didn't specify which type(even though the picture clearly has Oreo on it) so I decided to go with Joe-Joe's because it's cheaper, just as or more yummy(in my opinion) and I shop at Trader's so it's more convenient.

Before I got started I decided that I needed to have a special place for my cupcake ingredients so that a certain someone will not be tempted to eat them.

Then since I was clearing out the top shelf I decided why not clean out the entire fridge?....about two hours and one clean fridge later, I decided to make my cupcakes the next day :)

Okay day two. First I took my Joe's and dropped one in each liner.

Then I put 14(the recipe says 12 but I added two for luck) in a bag and beat them with a meat tenderizer which actually felt really good because honestly I was a bit grumpy.

End result

Then I mixed on Medium-high speed my two pounds of cream cheese and then gradually added one cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Then I drizzled in four eggs that were already beaten and at room temperature.

Then I was to add sour cream....sour cream!...Oh C....how could I not see that I needed sour cream! So I grabbed my son(my daughter was at school) threw him on my hip and ran out of the door. The closest store to me is Albertson's so I tore into the parking lot ran past all the people out front trying to sell me newspapers, chocolates, coupon books, asking for money and wanting my signature and found my sour cream(and a few cereal bowls on sale 2 for a $1) and ran back out the door.

THEN I beat in 1 cup of sour cream and my bag of beat up cookies.

Then I plopped the batter on top of the cookies and then into the oven at 275 for 22 minutes(rotating the tray half way through)


While my cupcakes were baking I helped myself to the most yummy snack. Trader's Pineapple salsa on top of cream cheese with sea salt pita chips....yummy!
Then the oven beeped and it was time to see my masterpiece! First off I have NEVER made cheesecake and I wasn't exactly sure how to tell if it was done. So I sort of tapped the top and it was a bit stiff so I figured that is how you know it's done. Second I was a bit disappointed with the cupcakes. They looked....well they looked like spit-up in a cup.

I went ahead and baked the rest of the batch trying to have a better attitude so that my cupcakes wouldn't look like spit-up.

After the cupcakes cooled I stuck them in the fridge for four hours.


It was hard for me to try one since I kept making the spit up analogy in my head....
But I took a bite and they were pretty tasty! Rich. But good.
Then I let my little tasters split the rest of the cupcake...



lThey thought it was very good.



I gave my cupcake love to my maintenance man Daren to take home to his family.
I gave one to my mailman and I also gave some to the lady at Blockbuster who set aside Avatar for me :)

All in all I would have to say that this recipe is pretty easy.
As far as taste goes I would say it's good. I would add even more mashed up cookies and I would mash them even finer.
The only downside is if you are going for presentation these aren't really pretty.
I am thinking I am going to try this again around Christmas and use Candy Cane Joe-Joe's. Mmmmmm. Now that might be pretty tasty.