Girl Scout Cookie Cupcakes "Tagalongs"

I made the homemade Tagalongs the other day and because this is a blog that's supposed to be mainly about cupcakes I just HAD to make a cupcake version of it.  A friend had come across a Samoa cupcake over on one of my favorite cupcake blogs Cupcakes Take the cake and said that it had my name all over it since I was making homemade girl scout cookies. Well since I had made the Tagalongs first I decided to go with this in cupcake form first. I may or may not get to all the homemade Girl Scout cookies and cupcake versions here soon but I will eventually. I have a GIANT ever growing list of cupcakes I want to make from new flavors to try to perfecting ones I have been making forever to new decorating techniques. So don't you all worry I will get to these cupcakes eventually because even I am DYING for some thin mints and thin min cupcakes!!

We started buying our eggs from a local farm recently instead of at the grocery store. I just LOVE the color of the eggs we have been getting from creams to tans to browns, speckled and even GREEN! They don't come in uniform sizes like at the store since well they aren't sorted so finding ones that are considered to be larges isn't always easy. 

The yolks are a deeper yellow than store bought. This was my first time baking with them. I have eaten them for breakfast now a few times and the taste is way better, richer almost. So I wondered if one can tell a difference in a cupcake.

Since Tagalongs aka Peanut Butter Patties come in the RED box I figured I could finally use these red liners I bought a while ago and for some reason had yet to use them

All my ingredients lined up. I tried a new recipe for this cupcake. I recently bought 3 new cupcake cookbooks and this one came from "Cupcakes" by Shelly Kaldunski

The batter was a nice creamy yellow. I was looking for a buttery cupcake with just a hint of vanilla since the cookie in the Tagalong is a buttery cookie

Ready for the oven

They smelled really good fresh out of the oven

I like the dome they got when baking. I love my recipes from Warren Brown's Cakelove but they tend to be a little flatter topped and this was what I was looking for this time. I was stoked!

Not totally sure what happened to this one. I think maybe some sugar and butter clumps that didn't get mixed all the way in and blew out during baking. I've never had this happen before but hey that's what LOTS of frosting is for. Cover up the oops!

For the filling I used my peanut butter frosting that I use for my chocolate peanut butter cupcakes instead of the same peanut butter mixture that I used in the tagalongs. It's a bit creamier and easier to pipe into cupcakes. I made a big batch because I am going to be making some cupcakes in the near future with them per request. So stay tuned you will see this frosting again in a few days.

Filled using my Wilton Bismark tip ( with a couple this time so I wouldn't have any mishaps like I did with my Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes)

I added a little round of the peanut butter on top because well one can't have too much peanut butter frosting

I have 3 chocolate frosting recipes in my file but I wanted more of a chocolate fudge taste to match the Tagalong chocolate coating so I took two of my recipes and combined but then tweaked again and came up with this one. Cocoa whisked together with powdered sugar and meringue powder

It doesn't look very dark but once it was mixed into the butter and vanilla it turned dark brown

Really tasty. I am happy with how this came out

My favorite tip for piping on those pretty swirls. This is a MUST have for any baker/decorator. I have probably 5 of them in my decorating kit. I have a few others that are giant open star tips or my 1M's on steroids ha ha

Pretty 1M swirl

I was really happy with how my swirls came out and almost didn't want to shove a cookie in them to squish it but since these are Tagalong cupcakes I just HAD to decorate with one of the homemade Tagalongs that I made

A cookie on a cupcake. Does it get much better than that??

My husband INSISTED on taste testing one...

He said it was "Damn good"  I'll take it. 

Yellow Cupcakes Recipe

From Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski

Makes 12 regular sized cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup sugar

6 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temp

2 large eggs, at room temp

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup whole milk

Directions:

Position rack in middle of oven, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard 12 cup muffin pan with paper or foil liners

In a bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and salt, set aside.

In another bowl using an electric hand mixer or using a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium-high until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and then add the vanilla and beat until just combined. Add the flour in three additions alternating with the milk. Don't wait for the flour mixture to be mixed in before adding the milk. You want the flour to be just barely combined. Scrape down the sides and then beat on medium -high speed just until no traces of flour remain about 30 seconds. Do not over beat.

Distribute evenly into the 12 cups, about 3/4 of the way full. Bake until lightly golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or the top springs back when gently pressed. About 17-20 min. Let the cupcakes cool in pan for 5 minutes then take out of pan and transfer to wire rack to cool completely before filling and frosting, About an hour.

Peanut Butter Filling/Frosting Recipe

Makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes and fill probably 100. ha ha

Ingredients:

1/2 cup ( 1 stick) unsalted butter softened

1 cup creamy peanut butter ( you can use crunchy for frosting but not for filling. Chunks of peanuts might get stuck in the piping tip) also use regular peanut butter like Skippy don't use natural peanut butter.

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup or so whipping cream

Directions:

Cream together the butter and peanut butter until well mixed together. You can use a deep bowl with a hand electric mixer or a stand mixer. Add the powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time. So you don't have powder sugar flying all over the place. Add the vanilla and mix well. Then add the cream slowly a little bit at a time until you get the consistency that you want or think is good for piping. I think I use a little more than 1/4 cup

Chocolate Fudge ButterCream Frosting Recipe

Makes enough to frost 18 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter room temp ( 2 sticks)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 lb ( 4 cups) powdered sugar 

2 tsp meringue powder

1/2 cup Hershey's cocoa powder

4-5 tbsp whipping cream

4 ounces of semi sweet chocolate melted and cooled. Use Baker's chocolate squares or a baking bar NOT chocolate chips/morsels

Directions:

In a separate bowl whisk together the powdered sugar, cocoa powder and meringue powder, set aside.

Cream the butter til light and fluffy, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl once in a while. Add the vanilla and beat on med-high until mixed in.  Mix in  one third of the powdered sugar cocoa mixture on low until mixed in then add 1-2 tbsp of the cream and beat on high until well incorporated. Repeat until all of the powdered sugar cocoa mixture has been added but no more than 5 tbps of cream has been added. Mix on high stopping to scrape down the sides as necessary. Add in the melted and cooled chocolate and beat on medium until light and fluffy. This is a pretty thick frosting and holds up well when piped. You can add more whipping cream to thin out a little but not too much. If you want a ganache type glaze then well this isn't the recipe for you. I do have a ganache recipe but I'm not posting it here right now. 

Just in case you forgot what it looks like when all finished since this is such a long post!

Homemade Girl Scout Cookies Tagalongs

Dear Girl Scouts, 

What happened to your cookies? They used to be good. And I mean really good. I looked forward to them once a year knowing that I could only get them from you ( well until someone told me that those darn Keebler elves were making something similar to a thin mint but I never went THERE because I was faithful to the Girl Scouts) until recently. It seems each year the boxes get smaller, the cookies get smaller, there are less in a box and the price keeps going up 50 cents each year AND the taste has declined terribly. I tried a Tagalong aka Peanut Butter patty this year and it was, well, terrible. Tasted bland, chemically and just not good. I stumbled across a site a few weeks ago, Baking Bites, which has become a favorite blog to stalk when WHAT WAS THIS???  I saw on the side of the page.. Could it be? Is it? HOMEMADE Girl Scout cookies??  I immediately forwarded the info to several baking addict friends of mine and printed out all the recipes for my self as well. One friend made the Thin Mints and Samoas first and with much success said they tasted WAY better than the real thing. I think she has since made the others but not totally sure. So my first recipe to make was the Tagalongs. Easy to make? Sure. Time consuming process with all the steps? Yup but not if you spread out over several days like I did. Giant mess? oh yeah. Worth the effort? Absolutely. Way better than the real thing. Sorry Girl Scouts. I will donate money from now on but save the cookies for someone else.

I had some trial and error with shape and size since these cookies didn't spread much during baking. I have several circle cutters but shaping into rounds and flattening seemed to work best.

Once out of the oven you make a small indent for the peanut butter filling. See some are bigger some smaller. I made even smaller ones but those didn't make it into the picture. I joked that I made the progression of the sizes of Girl Scout cookies over the years in one batch. Ha ha

Making the filling. I just made my normal peanut butter frosting recipe. Because its THAT good and I could always use the leftovers for cupcakes later. Which I intend on doing so soon.

I loaded them up with the peanut butter filling. I used a piping bag filled with the good stuff and no piping tip. Made for somewhat even blobs

This part was out of control messy. No easy way to dip a cookie in chocolate without getting it allllllll over the place. And then having to cover back up the finger marks from holding it. I said I needed a conveyor belt with one of those machines that evenly distributed the chocolate but then again that would require a MUCH bigger kitchen and I don't make many chocolate dipped cookies. Well until I make the thin mints soon.

Cooling on wax paper. Not the neatest of cookies but OMG soo good. Rich so one or two was satisfying.

YUM! And yes those are my teeth marks!!

Homemade Girl Scout Cookie Tagalongs 

Recipe completely copied from Baking Bites

Homemade Tagalongs (a.k.a. Peanut Butter Patties)
Cookies
1 cup butter, soft
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 350F.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Mix in flour, baking powder and salt at a low speed, followed by the vanilla and milk. The dough should come together into a soft ball.
Take a tablespoon full of dough and flatten it into a disc about 1/4-inch thick. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough. Cookies will not spread too much, so you can squeeze them in more than you would for chocolate chip cookies. (Alternatively, you can use a cookie cutter, as described in the post above).
Bake cookies for 11-13 minutes, until bottoms and the edges are lightly browned and cookies are set.
Immediately after removing cookies from the oven, use your thumb or a small spoon to make a depression in the center of each cookie
Cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Filling
1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter (natural or regular)
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar*
generous pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
about 8-oz semisweet chocolate

In a small bowl, whisk together peanut butter, confectioners’ sugar, salt and vanilla. When the mixture has come together, heat it in the microwave (again in short intervals, stirring frequently), until it is very, very soft. Working carefully with the hot filling, transfer it to a pastry bag (or plastic bag with the tip cut off) and pipe a generous dome of the filling into each cookie’s “thumbprint”.
Chill cookies with filling for 20-30 minutes, or until the peanut butter is firm.
Melt the chocolate in a small, heat-resistant bowl. This can be done in a microwave (with frequent stirring) or on a double boiler, but the bowl of melted chocolate should ultimately be placed above a pan of hot, but not boiling, water to keep it fluid while you work.
Dip chilled cookies into chocolate, let excess drip off, and place on a sheet of parchment paper to let the cookies set up. The setting process can be accelerated by putting the cookies into the refrigerator once they have been coated.
Makes about 3-dozen
*You might need slightly less sugar if you’re using the conventional peanut butter, as it tends to be a bit sweeter. Taste the filling before using to make sure you like the sweet/savory balance.

MY NOTES on the recipe

Keep the chocolate in a double boiler or in a bowl set over a pan of hot water to keep it fluid. Easier to dip in the chocolate and keep the chocolate from being TOO thick. Also you can add a little canola oil to the chocolate to thin it out too.

If the filling is too thick to spread add a few tablespoons of whipping cream to thin it a little. It will still be really thick but easier to pipe out.

Homemade Cake Doughnuts / Donuts

I am not a big fan of donuts. In fact I can't even remember the last time I ate a donut. But a friend of mine found this recipe on Bakerella's site ( a site I am a HUGE fan of) and tried with much success. So I printed the recipe to try myself. I am not one for eating anything deep fried since I try to live as healthy as possible (  I do sample my recipes but send the rest with the hubby to work. Life is about moderation afterall!) and I wanted to make oven baked donuts instead of frying but I don't have a donut pan and I really couldn't wait the 3-4 weeks for one to get shipped to me so I went the way of the deep fry. I was really scared to have a giant pot of hot oil on my stove but surprisingly it was a lot easier than I thought.

Started out melting the butter. I prefer melting it in my stainless steel measuring cup over low heat on my stove than in my microwave. I have been known to blow up sticks of butter and that is a giant greasy mess to clean up.

All my ingredients set to go

The batter is very sticky so I chilled for an hour in my fridge to make it more manageable to roll out

I love using my silicone bake mats for rolling out doughs, fondant etc. You only need to use a little bit of flour so you don't end up making your batter tough with all that extra flour. I also didn't have a donut cutter so I used a tuna can ( cleaned of course) and a small fondant circle cutter. I rolled the dough to 1/4 inch thickness like the recipe stated but the donuts came out really small. I think 1/2 inch would have been much better. I made a few 1/2 inch and they came out looking more like the donuts you get in a bakery. 

Here we go. Scary hot oil part

Not getting splattered like I thought I would be

They first sink to the bottom 

then pop right up to the surface. After a minute I flipped them over.

getting nice and golden

first two donuts I have ever made and first two items I have ever deep fried. I'm not so scared of the oil after all

 The recipe states it makes 12 donuts and 12 holes. I made like 30. I think because I made them 1/4 inch. They were good just the 1/2 inch size probably would have yielded 12

I dipped half the donuts in chocolate glaze and half in vanilla glaze.  Topped with toasted coconut, macadamia nuts, chocolate sprinkles and rainbow sprinkles

You can see that these are kinda "skinny" donuts

the "fatter" one I made. Cut with the dough rolled 1/2 inch. Perfect size

YUM!!!

Home made Cake Doughnuts/Donuts ( depending on how you spell them!)

recipe adapted from Bakerella

Slightly Dry Cake Doughnuts
4.5 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

• Sift flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt in a bowl and set aside.
• Beat eggs in a medium bowl until frothy. Add sugar and continue beating until combined.
• In another bowl, combine melted butter, milk and vanilla.
• Add the milk mixture to the egg mixture and stir until combined.
• Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture stir until combined.
• Chill the dough for about 60 minutes to make it easier to work with. (Ha!)
• Generously flour your work surface and roll dough out about 1/2 inch thick. Use a silicone bake mat if you have one.
• Use a doughnut cutter or two circle cutters (1 and 3 inch) to cut out shapes.
• Heat about 2 quarts oil (about 3 inches deep) in a large, heavy pot to about about 360 degrees. Use a candy/deep fry thermometer to monitor the heat.
• Fry 1-2 doughnuts at a time about a minute on each side. (I didn’t actually time this, but it wasn’t too long)
• Remove and place on a paper towel-lined tray.
• When cool, sprinkle powdered sugar or dip them in a vanilla glaze.
• Makes 12 doughnuts and 12 doughnut holes. Approximately

)
Vanilla glaze
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbsp butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
3-5 Tbsp milk

• With a mixer, mix sugar and butter.
• Add vanilla
• Add milk one tablespoon at a time until you reach the desired consistency.
• To make chocolate glaze melt and cool bittersweet or semi sweet chocolate and add to leftover vanilla. Probably about 1 cup or so. I didn't measure the exact amount. 

Homemade Nilla Wafers - take one

I had a bowl of the leftover vanilla bean pastry cream from my Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes 

and it tastes SO GOOD I didn't want it to go to waste. It wasn't as thick as pudding but had just a thick enough consistency that I knew the perfect treat to go with it was Nilla Wafers!!!

However being that Nilla Wafers come in a box and are full of preservatives and other things I try to stay way away from in my diet ( Sorry Nabisco!) and I love trying to find recipes of common goodies and make them homemade ( like the homemade Girl Scout Cookies that I am making next!!!) so I searched the internet knowing there just HAD to be a recipe out there for homemade Nilla Wafers. To my surprise I only came across two. So I printed out both and here is the first recipe I made from Serious Eats

About to cream the butter and sugar. I am getting more used to my spatula beater. I makes and awful squeaky sound when first mixing until the butter starts to coat the bowl. But it really works great so I don't have to stop the beater and continuously scrape down the sides of the bowl

One step calls for the seeds of a vanilla bean pod. I just love using vanilla beans whenever I can. The vanilla scent and taste is a million times better than just using an extract ( in my opinion) even over the top quality extracts that are on the market. You can always save the pod to make vanilla sugar or even homemade Kahlua!!

All purpose flour with some baking powder

Milk and vanilla extract. Hey they're not called vaNilla wafers for nothing right?

And yes I love my All Clad measuring spoons. ha ha

The butter, sugar and vanilla bean starting to come together you can see the tiny black specks of the vanilla bean seeds

And a close up. I wish blogs had smell-o-vision or scratch-and-sniff. This batter really smelled amazing.

This recipe called for piping the cookies out onto baking sheets instead of spooning out to get a more uniform shape

Piping. I use silicon bake mats instead of parchment but you can use parchment paper if you don't have the mats. I just personally find the mats to be more economical than parchment paper.

The recipe said to pipe out a circle the size of a nickel

Still piping... I used my Ateco 304 tip but any large plain round tip would work

Finally first batch ready for the oven

Ummm not exactly looking like the Nilla Wafers in a box. These were TINY and if I had kept them in my oven as long as the recipe stated - well they would have been charcoal. Lets try again but BIGGER this time

I piped out the next batch larger than a quarter size

Seriously? Flat. Not even close again. I give up.

 I at least tried to make them look nicer..with some milk for my husband

And with my leftover vanilla bean pastry cream. This was AWESOME together

So the flavor was really good but the look and texture wasn't the same at all. This was more like a little crispy vanilla butter cookie. Either too much butter or not enough flour or I should just spoon out into little balls instead of flatter discs. I am keeping this recipe on file for some altering later. I have another recipe I will try soon just to see the comparison. And if that one doesn't work out either then well I might just try to come up with something on my own!!!

Homemade Nilla Wafer Recipe

recipe courtesy of Serious Eats 

Vanilla Wafers

- makes about 8 cups of cookies (it makes a lot, but I’ve never counted!) -

Ingredients

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (1 stick or 112g)
1/4teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar (210g)
1 vanilla bean, seeds only
1 large egg white (~33g)
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk
1 1/3 cups AP flour (160g)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder (~3g)

Procedure

1. With an electric mixer, cream butter, salt, sugar and vanilla seeds until light.
2. Beat in egg white until well incorporated, scraping sides and bottom of mixing bowl to insure that all white has been incorporated.
3. Beat in extract and milk until well incorporated.
4. Whisk together flour and baking powder and add to butter mixture. Mix just to incorporate, scraping down sides and bottom of mixing bowl to insure that all flour has been incorporated.
5. Fit a piping bag with a large, plain pastry tip (I use Ateco #806, but slightly larger or smaller sizes will also work). Fill bag with about 1/3 of the batter. Holding the filled bag perpendicular to a parchment-lined baking sheet, pipe batter into nickel-sized rounds, about 1 inch apart. To make neat, well-shaped cookies, as you finish piping each round, sweep the pastry tip horizontally off to the side with a slight curving motion. (The cookies should cover 2 to 3 standard baking sheets. Batter will hold for a while after it is piped, so trays can be baked one or two at a time, as your oven allows.)
6. Bake at 350°F for about 15-20 minutes, until cookies are lightly browned, rotating trays every 5 minutes or so for even coloring. Cool completely before storing. Cookies will keep in an airtight container for at least a week.