Tagalong Cupcakes

I had surgery on Thursday... and I was SUPER nervous.  It's nothing too serious, just having 3 teeth pulled that should have been fixed a long time ago.  But now, I'm 33 weeks pregnant and in TONS of pain and just can't wait any longer to have them taken care of.

So... to keep my mind occupied the day before (and hopefully off the throbbing in my mouth), I decided to bake cupcakes!  Last week, I made Thin Mint Cupcakes with Girl Scout cookies so today I'm trying out a recipe for Tagalong Cupcakes made with my favorite peanut butter and chocolate GS cookie!

I asked on my Facebook page how exactly I should make this Tagalong cupcake and I really enjoyed the suggestion of one reader to make a thick crumb cake.  I've never actually tried to purposely make a cake with a big crumb and I thought this might be the perfect time to try that.  I did an internet search for thick crumb cake recipes and found lots of recipes for a New York Style Crumb Cake and I thought hmmm.... with a little tweaking, this could be pretty darn good as a cupcake!

And of course, the cupcake has to be filled with peanut butter... just like the cookie!  For this filling, I used a variation of my favorite peanut butter buttercream recipe, but made it more creamy and smooth than thick like a frosting.

Oh the frosting.  When you see a Tagalong cupcake.... you first see the dark chocolate covering the cookie.  It's shiny and sometimes, I just bite the edges of the cookie off and eat just the chocolate part first.  So I knew this cookie had to have that same shine and color.  Creamy chocolate was a MUST!

New York Style Vanilla Bean Crumb Cake
Makes 12 cupcakes

Recipe updated: September 2012

1 ¼ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt

6 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup vanilla sugar (regular sugar is okay too)
2 large eggs
seeds of one vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (split bean length wise and scrape out seeds)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup sour cream
¼ cup heavy cream (or milk)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.  Line cupcake pan with liners.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and vanilla sugar for about 2 minutes.
4. Add the vanilla bean seeds egg, scrape the sides of the bowl, and beat on high for at least 3 minutes until light and fluffy.
5. Mix in the sour cream, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
6. Add the flour in two parts and mix just until smooth.
7. Add the heavy cream and mix only until incorporated.  DO NOT OVER MIX!
8. Scoop evenly into 12 cupcake liners.
9. Bake 18-19 minutes, rotating pan after 12 minutes.
10. Cool in pan 4-5 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe inspired by: First Look, Then Cook

Whipped Peanut Butter Filling
Makes enough to fill & garnish 12 cupcakes 

2 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoon heavy cream

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer using the whisk attachment, cream together the butter and peanut butter.
2. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and add the powdered sugar.  Mix until smooth.
3. Scrape sides again, add the vanilla and heavy cream.  Whip on high for 3 minutes until light and fluffy.

Creamy Chocolate Frosting
Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes

½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 oz cream cheese
1 lb powdered sugar
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup heavy cream

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and cream cheese.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and cocoa powder.
3. Add the sugar/cocoa to the butter mixture and beat until smooth.
4. Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix in the vanilla extract.
5. Add up to ½ cup heavy cream or until you get the smooth consistency you want.
6. Beat on high for 3 minutes.

To Assemble the Cupcakes:

6 Tagalong Girl Scout Cookies, halved
Whipped Peanut Butter Filling
Creamy Chocolate Frosting
Piping bags & tips

1. Core the center of each cupcake using an apple corer.  I wanted to make sure these cupcakes had LOTS of peanut butter filling, so I cored them all the way down to the bottom liner.
2. Using a small closed star tip, pipe the whipped peanut butter filling into each hole making sure a little bit peeps out the top.
3. For half of the cupcakes, I stopped there with the peanut butter filling.  On the other half, I piped a small layer of the peanut butter filling on top of the cupcake as well.
4. Using a Wilton 1M tip, pipe a beautiful pile of creamy chocolate frosting on top of each cupcake.
5. With the remaining peanut butter filling, pipe a small dollop on top of the chocolate frosting on the cupcakes that are only filled in the middle.
6. Garnish with half a Tagalong Girl Scout Cookie.
7. EAT!