Sidney's Oreo Cupcakes

I was going to title this post "Vegan Oreo Cupcakes" but I didn't want anyone to think that I used some sort of weird ingredients that would change the taste of the cupcake.  Trust me -these are DELISH and kid approved!

Sidney turned three on Monday.  The poor girl has never had a cupcake because of her egg and dairy allergies :,-(  so I scoured the internet and found a recipe for Vegan Oreo Cupcakes.  It was really well reviewed and {bonus} I had all of the ingredients on hand!  Not because I make a ton of vegan treats, but because the ingredients are very simple.  I love that.

Since I had never made these cupcakes before, I decided to do a trial run now and if they turned out good, I will make them for her big party.  We all know how much Sidney LOVES Oreos so I decided to incorporate them as well.  When I make them for her big party, I think I will try to go even bigger with the Oreos....just you wait and see!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup water
1 container of vanilla icing
8-10 Oreos

Instructions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 
2.  Line a muffin tin with muffin cups.
3.  Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. 
4.  Add the oil, vanilla and water. Mix together until smooth.
5.  Pour into muffin cups and bake at 350 degrees F for 18-20 minutes. 
6.  While the cupcakes are baking, separate the Oreos and scrape the cream filling off the cookie.  Throw away the creme filling and place the cookies in a plastic Ziploc baggie.  Crush the cookies with a mallet of some sort.
7.  Remove from oven and allow to cool before icing.
8.  Once the cupcakes have cooled, ice them with the vanilla icing and then sprinkle the Oreo cookie crumbs over the icing.  I topped my cupcakes with a mini Oreo too!

Yield: 12 cupcakes

Now, I'm not trying to burn any bridges or upset the good people at Nabisco (we are BIG supporters of all varieties of your Oreos and very much appreciate that the creme filling contains no dairy), but I did a little experiment.  I iced half of the cupcakes as I described above and the other half I iced with store-bought Oreo Ultimate Icing.  

After a blind taste test (performed by my lab rat hubby), we concluded that my method of crushing the Oreos was much better.  Yeah!