Oatmeal Cream Pie Cupcakes

Once upon a time, a romance writer was sitting at her computer writing the beginning of a new novel and craving a Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie. Suddenly, her heroine baked cupcakes, awesome cupcakes! Oatmeal Cream Pie Cupcakes! She baked them for the hero, whose fondest memories took place during holiday times with her family where there were plentiful Oatmeal Cream Pies in the pantry! The hero just can’t resist her…cupcakes.

You can read more about those cupcakes and the other desserts Jenna bakes for Roman in SEDUCING THE PLAYBOY. Most of the recipes I put in my books are recipes my husband and I make all the time, but not Jenna’s cupcakes. They were born from my craving, and I had every intention of bringing them to life. After a few deliciously imperfect attempts (and a little inspiration from Aislynn at Stitch-Read-Cook who first featured this recipe), I did! I created my perfect Oatmeal Cream Pie Cupcake. The cake is toothsome with oatmeal, yet not dense. It hints of cinnamon, but doesn’t come right out and say it. The marshmallow buttercream is sweet…hang on, I’m going to go take another bite so I can describe it better…buttery, fluffy…hang on…creamy and light. The streusel? Holy Santa, my people! In my world, streusel belongs EVERYWHERE, but particularly on this cupcake. Oat-y, sugary, and crunchy, it adds intrigue to all the creamy, cakey YUMMINESS!

There are three different steps to this process, but they are all pretty easy as long as you have a mixer.

OATMEAL CREAM PIE CUPCAKE BATTER

(Makes 12 cupcakes)

 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons flour

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1 stick (4 ounces) butter, room temperature

6 Tablespoons brown sugar

2 Tablespoons molasses

1 extra-large egg, room temperature (I warmed mine in the shell in hot water)

½ teaspoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

½ cup oatmeal

½ cup yogurt (I used vanilla yogurt)

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line a regular-sized muffin pan with 12 liners.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 7 minutes on medium speed.
4. Add molasses. Combine. Slowly add egg. Combine.
5. Add vanilla and cinnamon. Combine. Then add oatmeal. Guess what? Combine!
6. Add 1/3 of the flour and combine. Then add half the yogurt. Combine. Follow it with about half the remaining flour, then the rest of the yogurt, then the rest of the flour, mixing after each addition.
7. I used an ice cream scoop to plop the thick batter into the cupcake liners, but a spoon will work, too. It wants to be 11 cupcakes, but I made it be 12.
8. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. Or until done!

As soon as the cupcakes go into the oven, make the streusel!

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STREUSEL

 2 Tablespoons butter

¼ cup quick oats

¼ cup flour

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1. Pinch ingredients together with your fingers until it is well combined and very crumbly.
2. Then spread it out on a piece of parchment paper.
3. Bake at 350 until it is a delicious shade of light brown, about 8 minutes.
4. Cool and crumble.

When both your cupcakes and your streusel are cool, you can make the divine frosting!

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MARSHMALLOW BUTTERCREAM

(Enough to frost 12 cupcakes)

1 stick unsalted butter (4 ounces), room temperature (although I used salted…and it was GREAT!)

½ cup powdered sugar (2 ½ ounces), measured, then sifted

1 ¼ cup marshmallow fluff (5 ounces)

1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy, about 8 minutes. I let mine go for a while, and it just kept getting fluffier!
2. Add marshmallow fluff. Mix until well-combined.

To make the full on Oatmeal Cream Pie Cupcake spectacular, frost the cupcakes with marshmallow frosting. Garnish the tops of the cupcakes with the baked streusel. Eat one immediately, just to make sure they are as good as they look. Then leave the house in a freaking snowstorm to take one to a friend…because they are even BETTER than they look! Okay, that last part is just what happened to me, but I’m so glad I made these cupcakes. The batter is fun to put together, streusel is one of my favorite things on earth, and the marshmallow buttercream is so flippin’ yummy I wanted to stick my face in the bowl. If you make these cupcakes and enjoy them as much as I did, give me a shout out! We can do a virtual fist bump. 😀