Oreo Cupcakes

These vanilla Oreo cupcakes start with a moist, fluffy vanilla cupcake and have cookies and cream sandwiches folded into the batter. And then after they are baked, an Oreo buttercream frosting is swirled on top of these Oreo cupcakes for a perfect treat!

 

Yes friend, I present to you an entire cupcake focused on using cookie and cream sandwiches, aka Oreo cookies.These vanilla Oreo cupcakes are what dreams are made of. I made these cupcakes for a friend’s 40th birthday recently and let’s just say they were gobbled up. Even my friend’s two year old son, when asked “Can Mom have a bite?” he shook his head no and kept the whole cupcake to himself! I mean I can’t blame the kid. They are that good.

It all starts with a moist vanilla cupcake base (because why bother right?) that’s made with buttermilk. And then I folded in crushed Oreo cookies. But why stop there? There’s more cookies folded right into the frosting. Yes Oreo buttercream frosting. Just try and not lick that spoon! I double dog dare you. You will fail. I did too, don’t worry 😉

And for good measure, I love sprinkling a few Oreo cookie crumbs on top for an easy, simple garnish. And hey it let’s everyone know what kind of goodness they are about to bite into.

Why You Will LOVE These Vanilla Oreo Cupcakes

• Make Ahead – With any cupcake recipe, I love making them ahead of time. You can make the frosting up to a week ahead of time and keep in the fridge. And the cupcakes can be made the day before, then simply frost the day of and enjoy!
• Cookies In Every Bite – We are not scrimping here on big old Oreo flavor! There are cookies in the cupcakes and the frosting. And by crushing them up you really do get a little bit of Oreo in every bite.
• Moist And Fluffy – These cupcakes are wonderfully moist and fluffy due to the fact that I used cake flour, which has a lower protein content than regular AP flour resulting in a tender cupcake. Plus it’s made with buttermilk making for one moist cupcake!

Ingredients Needed

Ingredient Notes

• Cake Flour – I love using cake flour for cupcakes because it really does create a tender, fluffy texture. If you don’t have any cake flour, AP flour will work but it won’t yield quite the same texture. Or you can try making a Homemade Cake Flour.
• Buttermilk – This creates a wonderfully moist cupcake and can’t quite be duplicated with regular milk but you can use it, or try using sour cream instead. You can try and make a homemade buttermilk version, but it won’t quite be the same.
• Oreos – I prefer to use organic Oreo cookies, (like Newman’s O’s or the Whole Foods variety) that are more natural and have less chemicals and preservatives!

How To Make Oreo Cupcakes

Make the cupcake batter

1. Combine dry ingredients. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. 
2. Cream butter and sugar. In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, or in a mixing bowl with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed for about 2 to 3 minutes until light and fluffy. 
3. Add eggs. Add in the egg and egg white, and beat to combine. Scrape down the bowl as needed.
4. Add vanilla. Add in the vanilla and mix to combine.

Scoop and bake

1. Alternate dry ingredients and buttermilk. You want to alternate adding the flour and buttermilk, by starting and ending with the flour mixture. So to start, add 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix to combine.
2. Add buttermilk. Then add 1/2 of the buttermilk . And then repeat by adding 1/3 more flour, the rest of the buttermilk. and then the last of the flour mixture. Stop mixing once the flour has been incorporated. Do not overmix.
3. Stir in crushed cookies with a spatula. Do not mix too much here or your batter will turn gray..
4. Bake cupcakes. Fill cupcake liners to ⅔ full. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and the top of a cupcake springs back to the touch. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Transfer cupcakes to a cooling rack and cool completely.

HEATHER’S BAKING TIP: Do NOT overfill your cupcake liners or your cupcakes may end up sinking after they come out of the oven!

Make the buttercream

1. Beat butter. In a bowl of your stand mixer, with paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed for about 2 minutes to soften.
2. Add the sugar. Add the confectioners sugar ½ cup at a time, with mixer on low, and beat to combine. Scraping down the bowl as needed.  
3. Add the heavy cream, vanilla, and salt. Beat to combine on low speed, then increase the speed to medium-high speed and beat for 7-8 minutes until light and fluffy. 
4. Add the cookies. Fold in the crushed cookies with a spatula until evenly distributed. Make sure to not overmix as it will cause a very gray cupcakes. Frost cooled cupcakes, or refrigerate covered until ready to use. 

HEATHER’S BAKING TIP: Make sure to crush the cookies up for the frosting into fine crumbs, or otherwise they will get stuck in your piping bag!

Frost the cupcakes

1. Transfer your frosting to a piping bag fitted with a piping tip. My favorite tips are large piping tips, like the closed star, or you could use an open circle (plain pastry tip). Frost each cupcake with a big old swirl of frosting!
2. Decorate with a few cookie crumbs. And if you want you can even decorate with half a cookie.

WANT LESS SWEET FROSTING? Try using my Swiss Meringue Buttercream or Italian Meringue Buttercream frosting instead! Fold in the Oreos at the end.

Filling The Cupcake Troubleshooting

For these cupcakes you want to fill about 2/3 full. You don’t want to fill up the wells to the top or you will get an ugly overflowed top. Or even worse, your cupcakes will sink in the middle!

So to show you this I purposely overfilled one cupcake to the top, filled one about 1/2 full (that’s the underfilled one) and then filled the rest to 2/3 full. You can see what they look before and after baking below…

It’s best to underfill than overfill. Yes you won’t get quite a pretty domed top if you underfill, but this way you won’t have them sink or overflow. You can see below the three cupcakes that were underfilled, filled 2/3 full, and then overfilled once they were baked.

The overfilled cupcakes didn’t sink, but as you can see some of the batter overflowed and you get these brown unsightly edges. The 2/3 filled cupcake has a perfectly domed top that we want! And then underfilled still has a nice domed top but it’s just shorter. Not the end of the world, and can be covered up with frosting, but just will yield a smaller cupcake.

Recipe Tips

• Be sure to measure your flour correctly. If measuring by volume, then make sure to spoon and level the flour in. You can read my post here on how to measure your flour correctly. Or for best accuracy I recommend weighing your ingredients. You can read my post on how to measure ingredients here <– there’s a video too! 
• Make sure your ingredients are room temperature. You want your butter to be softened, and especially your eggs. To bring your eggs to  room temperature quickly, simply place the eggs into a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes.
• Use an large cookie scoop for even scooping.  I use an ice-cream scoop like this one from OXO to scoop my cupcake batter. It makes quick work of scooping the batter and ensures all my Oreo cupcakes are the same size and bake evenly.
• Do not overfill your cupcake liners when scooping the batter. You want your liners about 2/3 full (no more than 3/4 full). Overfilled cupcakes can result in the cupcakes sinking after you baking them. Read this post for 6 reasons why your cupcakes sink in the middle.
• Double check that your baking powder is still fresh. Because this recipe uses melted butter there is no creaming step to incorporate air, so you need to make sure the baking powder is fresh so your cupcakes rise properly. To check the freshness, add a teaspoon of baking powder to some hot water. If it bubbles, it’s still fresh. If it doesn’t throw it out. And don’t mix it up with baking soda, they don’t react the same. You can read more here about Baking Powder vs. Baking Soda
• Use an oven thermometer. Make sure that your oven is heated correctly so these bake properly. For more oven 101, read this post.
• Don’t crush your cookies too fine for the Oreo cupcakes. This could result in turning your batter gray. So the cookies just need to be broken into small pieces, but not total crumbs.
• Use Oreo crumbs for the frosting. But you do want them smaller for the frosting or they will clog up your piping tip!
• Don’t overmix. This will not only result in a tough, chewy cupcakes but also a very GRAY ONE because of the Oreo cookies.
• Save a few crumbs. You want to reserve a few cookies to crush up and decorate on top of the cupcakes when done.

Recipe FAQ’s

More Recipes To Try

• Oreo Brownies
• Oreo Fudge
• Oreo Blondies
• Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes (With Cream Cheese Frosting)
• Red Velvet Cupcakes
• Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes
• Easy Chocolate Cupcakes