chocolate wafer

Oreo Cupcakes – Cookies & Cream

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I had been planning this cupcake for a while, thinking about what ways I could make an Oreo cupcake that was something more than just a cake base and buttercream frosting on top. I’m pretty satisfied with the result here, although I think there are many more interesting variations to try. Coincidentally, my sister-in-law baked a version of an Oreo cupcake on the same exact night with a whole Oreo cookie at the bottom, which I definitely want to try next time! I was afraid a whole cookie at the base would burn or disappear somehow, but I hear it stays crunchy and is quite delicious.

Here, I have a chocolate cake with a fudge cookie bar in the middle. The fudge cookie bar is a baked Oreo cookie bar with ganache poured on top. Because the cookie is made from ground Oreos, it is crumbly rather than “crunchy”, but I will continue to experiment with that. The ganache adds a smooth creamy moist filling.

For the frosting, I made an Oreo “mousse.” I did in fact try a mousse base, but the egg yolks made the frosting too yellow. Then I tried the same mousse with egg whites instead of egg yolks, but that doesn’t hold up. Then I tried a meringue buttercream base without the butter, but the texture and taste just weren’t quite right. Finally, I ended up with a whipped cream stabilized with some gelatin, with ground Oreos folded in, and I think I achieved the light fluffy consistency I was looking for. The cookie on top is a Nabisco chocolate wafer, like the type I used in my Icebox Cake. I would not recommend grinding up this wafer for the frosting. The wafer has ground coconut in it, which results in an odd crunch/chew that does not blend well with whipped cream.

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Icebox Cake – Homage to Billy’s

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As a cookies-and-cream fan, I love icebox cake (Milo clearly does too). Chocolate wafers, whipped cream, chocolate curls, and . . . that’s it! What more would you want?
When we visited New York after my bar exam last year, we went on an impromptu cupcake tour. My cousin Naomi recommended that we check out Billy’s Bakery, where we discovered the icebox cake. What a refreshing change from the other cupcake-dominant bakeries we visited!
The Nabisco chocolate wafers aren’t easy to find, but grocery stores sometimes stock them in the ice cream aisle. The whipped cream makes up more than half the volume of the cake, but it’s so light, and just barely sweetened, that you eat this cake up nearly guilt-free. A couple tips: 1) do not overwhip the cream (or it loses its smoothness, as it did in my case), and 2) use at least 1/4″ of cream between layers, as the wafers will soak it up and you do not want to end up with a solid mass.

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