Snowman Surprise Cupcakes Recipe

Back in October when I was at the BlogEats Conference at Kraft Kitchens and a group of us came up with a creative holiday dessert using some of Kraft’ss great products.  We needed to use Oreo cookies, Planters peanut butter, and Jell-O pudding in our creation and we took all those ingredients and ran with it.  Wouldn’t you know it, we won the in-house contest!  The Snowman Surprise Cupcakes recipe is a time consuming only because we made the cupcakes from scratch, as well as the frosting, if you you use a box recipe and tub frosting, more power (and time) to ya!

Cupcakes

2 ¼ cups flour
1 ½ cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla
4 large eggs
1 ¼ cups milk
¼ cup heavy cream
¾ cup butter
1 pkg. (3.9 oz.) Jell-O Chocolate Instant Pudding
24 Cookie Balls

Beat sugar, butter, baking powder and vanilla in large bowl with mixer on high for 3 minutes or until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.

Combine flour and dry chocolate pudding mix. In a separate bowl, combine milk and heavy cream. On low speed, beat in flour mixture alternately with milk mixture, just until blended.

Line 24 muffin cups with cupcake liners. Fill each cup ¼ full with cake batter. Place one cookie ball in center of each. Top with cake batter to ¾ full. Bake at 350° for 25 to 30 minutes. Test with toothpick. Let cool.

Frosting

1 3.9 oz. Jell-O Vanilla Instant Pudding
2 tbsp chocolate frosting
1 cup milk
Mix vanilla pudding, 1 cup milk, 2 tbsp chocolate frosting. Top cupcakes.

Cookie Balls

8 oz. Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
32 Oreo Cookies, crushed
¼ cup Planters Creamy Peanut Butter
6 squares Baker’s White Chocolate
Red and blue decorating gel
24 chocolate kisses

Mix cream cheese, Oreos and peanut butter. Roll into 48 balls and place on wax paper.

Snowmen
Melt 6 squares white baking chocolate. Dip remaining 24 cookie balls. Top with kisses. Let harden. Paint faces with gel. Place on top of cupcakes.

Thanks to Kraft for hosting my trip, travel, and accommodations.