Lovey Dovey Trifecta Cookies and Sweetheart Cupcakes

[bubblebubba]

I’ll admit it-I’m a little vixen.

This crazy (good) cupcake-and-cookie love blast combo is brought to you by a little V-day vixen named Ala.
Anybody who knows me in “real life” can tell you that I have a terrible habit of encouraging people to indulge in every single desire they have the misfortune to express to me. I do a pretty darn great job of it too, if I say so myself. If the president was as successful at reconciling cross-party views as I am at persuading my friends to hit up every single one of the Seven Sins in the course of one party, every congressional session would just be a bunch of people clasping hands and singing hallelujah to a blown-up picture of a red & blue donk-lephant-ey.



If I bring this entire tray of lovey dovey trifecta cookies (i.e. the best, fluffiest, chewiest PB oat choco-chip cookies you will ever have) and raspberry cheesecake-filled sweetheart cupcakes to my friends, as I did on V-day, and somebody says…

“Oh my GAWD, these are AMAZING…”

and then follows that by saying

“Take them away from me, or I’ll eat them all!”

I will say…

You, eat them all?

“CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.”

To accept the (really simple!) challenge of making these absolutely chewy, flavor-packed cookies and chocolatey, cheesecake-filled cupcakes, make the leap to my blog!



Lovey Dovey Trifecta Cookies

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Adapted from Allrecipes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (homemade or store-bought)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup oats (quick-cooking or rolled are fine)
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 36 Dove Heart chocolates (I used chocolate and raspberry creme)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a cookie sheet and set aside.
2. Cream together butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until fluffy and smooth. Stir in peanut butter, vanilla, and egg until well-incorporated. Add flour, baking soda, and salt; mix in until just incorporated. Fold in oats and chocolate chips.
3. Drop dough by small tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes in oven, until golden.
4. Remove cookies from oven and immediately press an unwrapped chocolate into the top of each cookie. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then remove from sheet and cool completely on a wire rack.

Sweetheart Cupcakes (Chocolate with Raspberry Cheesecake Filling)

Yield: 1 dozen cupcakes

Original chocolate cake recipe from Averie Cooks

(I wasn’t sure how Averie’s moist, delectable-looking cake would translate into cupcakes. In the end, the cupcakes were still great, but a bit dense for my purposes-still love the cake, as did everyone else, but might substitute a different chocolate cupcake recipe next time! Below is the original recipe I tested.)

Ingredients:

• 1 large egg
• 1 cup white sugar
• 6 ounces plain Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup brewed coffee, warm or room temperature
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Raspberry cheesecake filling ingredients:

• 1 (8 oz.) block cream cheese, softened
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup raspberry preserves

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 12 cupcake tins with cupcake liners.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together egg, sugar, yogurt, oil, and vanilla. Stir in coffee and cocoa powder until smooth. Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; mix until just incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips.
3. Pour batter into cupcake liners until each is about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until toothpick inserted into center of each cupcake comes out relatively clean but with moist crumbs sticking to it. Remove from oven and allow cupcakes to cool as you prepare cheesecake filling.
4. For raspberry cheesecake filling: Whip together cream cheese and white sugar in a medium bowl. Add egg and mix in until mixture is completely smooth. Stir in preserves.
5. Assembly: Take a completely cooled cupcake and place on a cutting board. Running a sharp knife parallel to the base of the cupcake, slice off the muffin-top part that pops out over the cupcake liner. (In other words, you’re slicing the muffin-top from the base, so that the surface of the cupcake base is now as high as the cupcake liner.) Cut out a hole from the center of the muffin and fill generously with raspberry cheesecake. Carefully cut a heart shape out from the muffin-top and then replace the muffin-top on the cheesecake-frosted cupcake base. Voila! You have a cute raspberry cheesecake filling peeking out in the shape of a heart.