Cool Mint Oreos and Birthday Cake Oreos inside cupcakes!

Lots of cupcake creativity going on! The Mint Oreo baked inside cupcakes are by Bahama, North Carolina home-based bakery Cakes by Becky via Flickr and the Birthday Cake Oreo (didn't know that was a kind of Oreo!) birthday surprise cupcakes are by An American Cupcake in London via Flickr.





From the blog post, where you can get the recipe:

The cupcake recipe is a nice time-saver as it uses a chocolate boxed mix for the base with a few additions (still comes out super tasty!) and I paired it with my basic buttercream recipe with finely crumbed cool mint oreos and peppermint flavoring added in.

From An American Cupcake in London:

I used a funfetti cupcake mix, which made 6 cupcakes. I put one spoon of batter into the liner and placed the Oreo in and then placed another spoon of batter on top. I made half of this frosting recipe with some vanilla paste and no food coloring.

Cupcakes or Cookies?

Do these cupcakes have you doing a double take? Well they should since they're not cupcakes at all! They're cookies! Sweet Sugar Belle tweaked and perfected this little experiment to create these amazing looking cupcakes! Most cookies shaped like cupcakes are the flat cookie cutter kind decorated to look like our favorite sweet treat but as you can see, Sweet Sugar Belle took to a new level...literally to create these 3D creations! She mentioned that she developed a tutorial for readers to recreate these themselves but check out her blog for more information!

Cookie Monster Blues

Doesn't he look awfully pleased with what I assume is his cupcake?

Photo courtesy Logan Hicks.

Oreo, Cat in the Hat and Chicago cupcakes by Swirlz, plus our meetup is there March 17th

Swirlz Cupcakes in Chicago celebrates the 100th birthday of the Oreo cookie with a special Oreo cupcake, today only, featuring Chocolate or Vanilla cake, filled with vanilla buttercream, layer of chocolate ganache and oreo chunks, vanilla buttercream swirl and finished with a dip in Oreo pieces, and also recently made Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat and Chicago 175th birthday cupcakes. We're hosting a meetup at Swirlz, 705 W. Belden, on Saturday, March 17th (St. Patrick's Day) from non to 1. Get there early; first dozen cupcakes are on us! No need to RSVP. Visit swirlzcupcakes.com and Swirlz on Facebook for more information.

Happy 100th birthday, Oreo cookie, good for topping, baking inside and making penguins in cupcake form

Oreo cookies are delicious, if you ask me. I'm partial to the pry the cookie open and scrape out the sweet gooey part inside, then eat the cupcake method of eating them myself. Today is the 100th birthday of the Oreo cookie, which also makes a fabulous cupcake topper, or cupcake filler, as you can see below.




Oreo cupcakes by blogger Bakergirl, who has the recipe


Oreo baked inside a cupcake and a mini one on top, by melonqueen on Flickr


Oreo penguin cupcake by blogger my feelings taste like cupcakes, where you can get the recipe and decorating instructions, via Flickr: "Oreo crust, vanilla cake, cookies and cream Oreo filling, marshmallow frosting with an Oreo penguin face on top!"

Oreo inside a cupcake, owls, Starry Night cupcake cake and flavors like energy drink poppyseed at Starry Night Cafe

Fun! An Oreo cookie inside a cupcake, available at Cupcake Wars competitors (August 2011) Starry Night Bakery in Westminster, Maryland, via their Facebook page. Visit starrynightbakery.com for more information. Other cupcake flavors include sugar free luscious lemon, salted caramel apple, VooDoo and more. These were their special Cupcake Wars flavors that were available in the bakery last year: Kona Coffee, Canned Ham Taro Root Slider, Energy Drink Ginger Poppy Seed and Pineapple Coconut. Vegan, gluten free and other custom cupcakes are also available; contact them at 410-871-9131. You can also follow them @starrynightcafe on Twitter. They're debuting new cupcake flavors today so keep up with their social media to find out what they are!

A special alert for those in their area looking for wedding cakes (or cupcakes): this Sunday, March 4th from 11-4 they are hosting a wedding cake tasting. Via their blog.





Here are a few more of their cupcakes:


owls!


custom cupcakes that say "Family is Always First" for Carroll Hospital Center


wedding cake and cupcakes


last but not least, Van Gogh's Starry Night as a pull-apart cupcake cake

Gluten-Free Raspberry Coconut-Almond Bars

Gluten-free almond raspberry bars with coconut are sweet temptation.

Let's be honest. I am here today to tempt you. To coax you. To seduce you with a vegan holiday dessert worthy of the calories. In full transparency, I am admitting up front these are not fat-free. Or sugar-free. These aren't diet food. They're not proper for breakfast (unless you serve them with Champagne). And you won't be able to sigh ever-so-wistfully at parties and mention, off hand, how hard it is to eat gluten-free during the holidays. Because, Darling Reader, you'll score zero sympathy points once people sink their teeth into the luscious raspberry jam filling nestled between buttery toasted coconut-almond crunch topping and tender hazelnut cookie crust. Nope.

In fact, these decadent raspberry coconut-almond bars should come with a warning:  

Be careful who you share these with.

{Because they are sure to fall madly in love with you.}

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Gluten-Free Gingersnaps Recipe

Gluten-free gingersnaps- a classic holiday cookie.

This time of year simply begs for gingersnaps- the classic and humble cookie that tastes old fashioned and elegant and post new wave all at once. A subtle, spicy, gingery bite that snaps with a crunch to awaken satiated taste buds soaked in a holiday sea of egg nog, cheese logs and peanut butter balls. Fancy cookies, these are not. Slathered with green icing and star sprinkles? Not exactly. Though, you could, I suppose. Slather these. And sprinkle with abandon. If you're of a mindset that more is more, and nurture not the minimalist mantra of Less.

The choice is yours.

Go old fashioned and let the gingersnap goodness tingle on its own.

Or go wild.

And get your frosting on.

It's your party.


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Almondy Almond Butter Cookies

Gluten-free almond butter cookies await.

Rumor has it baking weather is just around the corner. Though you'd never know it by looking out the window here in Southern California. Texting skateboarders whip by in short shorts, bikini clad surfer girls are paddling out on their long boards, and jewel-studded flip-flops remain the shoe du jour. It feels more like July than September. It's hot.

And it feels good.

It was a coolish summer for those of us on the South Bay coast. June Gloom stuck around long past its expiration date. Until this week, in fact, I was walking my morning ritual loop in my thickest hooded sweatshirt, fingers tucked up inside the sleeves for warmth (what visitors to Los Angeles assume is smog is actually fog that hugs the coast, blanketing our beaches- and west side- with a fuzzy soft marine layer). It's lovely for baking. But chilly for fingers and toes.

So I bake. In UGGs.

And my latest experiment is cookies.

Just because.


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Gluten-Free Anise Biscotti

Sugar-free vegan biscotti infused with anise. Start dunking.

Sugar is taking a beating these days. Have you noticed? Studies left and right are accusing this sweet-talking Romeo of seducing us to a life of ruin and heartache. They've applied the words toxic, and poison. Is it really as bad they say? I'm not certain (and I'm not convinced they are, either; my sugar loving grandmother lived to the ripe old age of 93). But this I do know. Super refined corn sugar (aka HFCS) scares me. Not only because it cajoles our livers to convert the fructose to belly fat, but because it doesn't agree with me. Period.

I knew this the first time I drank a margarita that made me balloon and bloat like a pregnant Demi Moore (and while I concur that Demi was superbly gorgeous in all her fecund glory, in all honesty, I do not desire to emulate such a look- or frankly, such a fertile state- at my tender age of post- let's say- fifty). So I took a gander at the label of margarita mix to be sure it was gluten-free. It was. But the second ingredient? High fructose corn syrup.


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Gluten-Free Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Chips

Crunchy outside, chewy inside, gluten-free vegan chocolate cookies.

I have a new cookie recipe to share today. A cocoa infused cookie studded with semi-sweet chocolate chips. A cookie that tastes like a brownie- if a brownie was slightly crispy and crunchy on the outside, and chewy soft on the inside. You could say, it's a brownie with a cookie texture.

Texture is a big deal in gluten-free baking.

It's no secret that giving gluten the boot also means giving texture, stretch, and structure the old heave-ho, right along with it. First timers bite into gluten-free goodies and pause. They chew. Their eyes widen and dart to the side as they search for a word to describe exactly what it is they are chewing.

The word most often used to describe something gluten-free? Gummy. Or worse. Cardboard. Attributes one does not necessarily associate with pleasure. With nourishment. With flavor.

Which is why I am here.


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Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes

The best gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipes on GFG.

It's a cool rainy Sunday here in West Hollywood. I am sipping a hot coconut milk chai to the velvet croon of Chet Baker. And I am thinking about cookies. Not just any cookies. Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. The best of the best. Sifting through my variations like a saxophone player in the groove of a beat. How do I like them best? That is the question. Because cookies will be baked today. And I've got a handful of chocolate chip cookie recipes to choose from. I've got choices.

Maybe I'll go with a classic style, bumpy with heavenly chunks of a vegan dark chocolate bar. Or the slightly chewy-crisp favorites made with gluten-free rolled oats from Bob's Red Mill. Wait. But then I remember my buckwheat flour chocolate chip cookies. Slightly sweet and verging on cakey. Perfect with a glass of cold vanilla rice milk. And then, to make matters even more complicated, I suddenly crave my quinoa flake cookie dough seductively studded with dark chocolate chips.

Decisions. Decisions.


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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies- Gluten-Free Recipe

Gluten-free pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with a secret ingredient.

Autumn usually stirs my culinary imagination to conjure seasonal soup recipes and Crock Pot comfort food. The key word here is usually. Historically. As in, what I've done before, come September. This time around, however, my restless spirit has been wandering far and wide and away from dreams of butternut chili and baked rice casseroles toward the tempting, sweeter things in life.

As in cookies.

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Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookies

Almond flour cookies with the nutty crunch of pecans.

Here I am again. Baking cookies. It's one way I cope with the world. Which, in case you haven't noticed, is totally moon bat crazy. So what do you do? The older I get the more I let go. And it's not just letting go of the obvious stuff, like that box of canceled checks from your first marriage or those hideous platform shoes you bought after seeing Saturday Night Fever. I'm letting go of things I once cherished. Stuff I used to believe. Opinions. The Right Way To Do Something. Why?

Because the older I get the less convinced I am that I know what is best. Sometimes it's hard to tell. I know from experience that the best laid plans can will often fail. And that sheer dumb luck can plop in your lap and splatter you with an unbidden opportunity. I've lived long enough to see the truth in my favorite line from Little Big Man. Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't. So I don't grasp anything too tightly anymore. 

Which brings me to Cheez Doodles and why you need to let go. 

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Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Quinoa Cookies

Delicious quinoa chocolate chip cookies. A gluten-free favorite.

My last cookie post stirred up a veritable stew of feelings. From oat-loving high fives and boogie till the cows come home oatmeal cookie bliss, to very sad, That's okay, I'll sit this one out in the corner moping. Because oatmeal? It's not for everyone. Apparently, oats can be unkind to sensitive celiac tummies. So while many celiacs celebrate the availability of certified gluten-free oats (thank you, Bob's Red Mill!), just as many shun this humble cereal grain for the sake of symptoms or safety.

Avena sativa? Not welcome in many a gluten-free kitchen.

Some believe the trouble starts with its globulin or legume-like protein called avenalin. Some think it's the soluble fiber factor. Others believe that the prolemine in oats called avenin triggers a celiac-like response. The debate rages on. And I'm no scientist, I'm sorry to tell you, so I'll sit this one out. But.

The truth is, Babycakes, you don't want to be around moi after I've eaten oats- gluten-free certified or not. Although I tested negative for oat allergy, these tasty chewy little cereal devils produce enough, um, wind in my nether regions to keep Wyoming well lit for a week.

It ain't pretty, is all I'm saying.

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Gluten-Free Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. 
For your gluten-free munching pleasure.

I suppose you could argue that one oatmeal cookie recipe is enough. I mean, how many oatmeal cookie recipes does a person need? To this I answer, at least two. Why? Well, first you have one with raisins. Raisins give oatmeal cookies that old school chewy sneaky nutrition boost. They're old fashioned and comfy cozy. Kinda like spending one of those Saturday afternoons at your Aunt Martha's house, chillin'. Watching The Point and laying on the floor with a pile of coloring books. Coloring outside the lines with a beat up box of Crayolas. Wishing the silver crayon was more than a lonely nub.

And right at that nub lamenting moment she'd bring you a plate of cookies.

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Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe with Quinoa Flakes

Dunk worthy gluten-free peanut butter cookies with quinoa flakes.

We are one week into the New Year and I have changed my blog design twice. That shows you how restless a spirit I am. I am always tweaking, trying some new twist or changing up something. Whether it is an ingredient in a peanut butter cookie recipe or a photograph in a blog header, I am forever focused on improving. On creating. Inventing something beautiful. That and, well. I get bored easily. It's a curse. And once I took a gander at these warm from the oven cookies, posed so temptingly next to that virginal glass of ice cold rice milk, I had no choice but to shake things up around here.

You know how I feel about cookies (I've confessed my love before in my Ode to Cookies love fest on Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies). A good cookie is no small thing.

Especially if you must live gluten-free. Double that if you must live dairy-free. And triple that if you live egg-free. Holy Mother of Muffins, it ain't easy. 

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Thumbprint Cookies with Buckwheat Flour + Brown Sugar

Gluten-free thumbprint cookies made with buckwheat flour + brown sugar.

'Tis the season for baking cookies. So I feel no guilt at all tempting you with my latest gluten-free baking success. What kind of gluten-free goddess would I be if I didn't keep conjuring up cookie recipes? I ask you. Not a goddess worth her salt- er- sugar. So I am not going to apologize for the calories, or the fat or the organic golden brown sugar in this recipe. Goddesses do not apologize for their cookies. Not during cookie season, anyway. And besides, Sweetcakes, a treat should be a treat. Life is short. Daylight is dwindling.

Live a little.

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Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies with chunks of dark chocolate.

Quick question. Which camp are you in? The You Can Never Have Too Many Cookie Recipes camp- or the Enough with All the Cookie Recipes contingent? You already know which faction I belong to. I don't even have to say it. In fact, I might even rename my culinary caucus. Something like, You Could Never In a Million Spectacular Carbon Infused Star Struck Years Have Too Many Cookie Recipes, Goddess Forbid.

My Ode to Cookies

Why all the cookie love? Life is short, number one. And just because I have celiac disease doesn't mean I surrender to a life without chocolate chip cookies and coffee laced cookies and mint chocolate chip cookies. I'm not giving up on warm-from-the-oven melty chocolate goodness. I'm most definitely not settling for any month old pre-packaged gluten-free poor excuse for a cookie. No way. Not gonna happen.

Because a good cookie is no small thing.

A good cookie can make you smile, even after a long, achingly crappy day. A good cookie might even bring you a kiss. Or little arms of appreciation wrapped around your neck. A good cookie might make you a new friend. Or prove to the class that you're not a total, allergic freak living on weirdo food that you have to feel sorry for and throw bread balls at.

A good cookie can make you feel like you belong.

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Gluten-Free Coffee Biscuits Recipe

Coffee laced cookies with chocolate chips

This is a cookie recipe for a grown up. Call them adult cookies. Or better yet, go a little UK and name them biscuits. It sounds a whisker more civilized when you declare to your co-workers, Excuse me while I fetch myself a coffee and a biscuit, Darling. Back in two shakes!

Much less Kindergarten, with all that grab your blankie from your cubbie business and the ritual involving tiny milk cartons and poking bendy straws through paper wrappers and the inevitable bad boy, Sully, who would blow on the straw and shoot the wrapper missile right at your ear (so annoying) and those graham crackers that never quite snap apart evenly and get stuck in your teeth (beyond annoying). Quiet time. With cookies.

A prelude to adult tea time, I suppose. But don't mention snuggies. I don't even know what a snuggie is, nor do I want to know why I would want to bring one to work with me and why they're making a day of it. It seems so. Let's see. The image of graham crackers and milk and that nasty snotty Sully shooting paper straw wrappers at my head comes to mind.

Kindergarten.

The word itself conjures that official classroom smell. Crayons and white paste and chalk. I'm snagged in the late trailing end of the Boomer Generation, can you tell? We had nap time on the floor with blankets and milk. I'm sure my sons have a their own '80's variation on this "time out" theme. (I'll have to ask them.)

What did you have for your Quite Time ritual?

Milk and cookies? Or Juice boxes and Cheetos? And why are cookies called cookies here in the States and biscuits in the UK? I ask you. Inquiring minds are scrambling to uncover these mysteries.

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