Chocolate Oreo Cupcake Recipe

Birthday weekend continues and today I bring you the cupcakes I made for my family birthday party over labor day weekend. I brought these bad boys:

They were pretty darn fantastic! The frosting was definitely the best part. My nephew can back up my story - he licked the frosting clean off of a few of them! Isn't it amazing that Oreos are vegan? One of life's little accidental gifts. The fam knew the cupcakes were vegan and ate them anyway. 1 point for open-mindedness! What they didn't know was that the devil's food cupcakes had a secret ingredient, one that freaked me out at first and I am pretty brave with my desserts these days: mayo! Well, Vegenaise to be precise. I found the cupcake recipe here (another one of Chocolate Covered Katie's!) and doubled it. The Devil's Food/Mayo cupcake gets a 9/10 from me... it is really really good, rich, and thick. You are supposed to store them in the fridge and now I know how delicious cold cupcakes can be!

Vegan Oreo Frosting

2 cups mashed Oreo cookies (approximately 10-12 cookies)
1/3 cup Earth Balance or other vegan margarine
2/3 cup vegetable shortening
4 cups powdered sugar
3 Tbl almond milk
1 tsp vanilla

Cream together the shortening and margarine in a mixer. Then mash up the 2 cups of Oreos pretty fine but not too fine. The best part when eating them was getting a little chunk of Oreo every once in awhile in the frosting. I mashed mine fine enough that I knew they'd fit through the hole in my pastry bag when frosting the cupcakes. Add the oreos to the shortening/margarine mixture and mix until combined, then add in the powdered sugar one cup at a time. The frosting should be really dry now - add the 3 Tbl of milk and vanilla and it will magically become frosting-like as you mix it the rest of the way together. I like to then beat the frosting on a fast speed to make it fluffy. Throw it in a pastry bag or ziplock with one of the corners cut out and frost away!

I bought a bag of mini Oreos to garnish the top of each cupcake with. They were a big hit with the kids too!

 My niece and I celebrate our birthdays just 2 weeks apart... so we like to celebrate together!