Pinned it and Made it: Top Gear Chocolate cupcakes with Oreo Whipped Cream

Last night was the US premiere of the new season of the original UK version of the show "Top Gear". The Mister and a few of our friends are big fans of the show, so we decided to have everyone over for a little viewing party. Any excuse to make cupcakes is fine by me!

A few weeks ago I'd Pinned this recipe for Chocolate Cupcakes with Oreo Whipped Cream frosting.

Original Source: http://pawleysislandposh.blogspot.com/2012/03/pink-pants-and-such.html Please be sure to Pin from the original source!

Our local cupcake shop sells a cupcake called the Cookie Monster that looks just like this, only it's also filled with the whipped Oreo cream. It happens to be their shop's best selling cupcake and it's Maren's favorite, so I wondered if this recipe would recreate it. The black and white theme was perfect for my party!

I was in a hurry and in no mood to deal with fallen cupcakes (a hazard of baking at Denver's high altitude with 'normal' recipes) so instead of making the cupcakes from scratch using the Pinned recipe, I cheated and used a Devil's Food cake mix. The Oreo Whipped Cream frosting was just that--whipping cream, a small amount of powdered sugar, vanilla, and crushed Oreo crumbs.

Initially I thought the frosting wouldn't be sweet enough and I did add 2 extra tablespoons of Oreo crumbs, but once it was on the chocolate cupcakes it was just perfect! It wasn't an exact match for the Cookie Monster cupcake from my local shop, but it was on the right track. The whipped cream frosting was a nice lighter alternative to buttercream. The cupcakes were a big hit--I made 24, and at the end of the night only 4 were left--and we only had 11 people here!

For our "Top Gear" party, I forewent the Oreo half in the photo and instead made my own The Stig cupcake toppers:

If you don't watch the show they won't make any sense, but The Stig is this masked driver they use to drive very fast cars. His identity is a secret and they introduce him using silly made-up facts that always begin with the phrase, "Some say..."

To incorporate that element, I made silly paper wraps for our soda bottles, each with a different "Some say..." phrase found on this website. They were kind of ghetto because they were literally done at the last minute, but had I more time I would have put a photo of The Stig on the wraps as well. I probably would have also manage to cut the papers all the same size (sheesh). I always have more ideas than time, it seems!