One Sweet MoFo

Tis the season... No, not Christmas although there is a lot of red and green involved. I'm talking little Girl Scouts running around with their annual fundraiser selling cookies. Let the bloodshed ensue. I actually pity the poor Boy Scouts stuck with selling popcorn to raise money. Popcorn just can't compare to those infamous cookies.

My adorable little cousin, Erica is a Girl Scout for the first time this year. Her mom, Eva is the troop leader and my cunning, manipulative sister, Jen is the co-leader. Long story short, I have 40 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. True story. I even have the Girl Scout Badge for being the person to purchase the most to prove it.

So what can a dieting girl like me do with 40 boxes of Girl Scout cookies? Although I have my newly inherited 19-year-old brother roommate and my husband-who wishes he could still eat like he was 19 years old, and although I gave a few boxes away to some guys at work, The dilemma remained: What do I do with (now) 32 boxes of GS cookies? What any other self-respecting cupcake-a-teer would do.

 Introducing: Girl Scout Cookie cupcakes.

Not only were these cupcakes delicious, but they were the easiest batch to make. I was fresh off a business trip in Sacramento and was packing for a trip to Phoenix when I decided to whip these bad boys up and take them to my hungry family back in the 6-oh-2.

Chocolate Cupcake
1 box chocolate cake mix

3 eggs

some water

some vegetable oil

So I cheated and didn't make these from scratch. I was exhausted-get over it.

I am hoity-toity enough to use bottled water, but feel free to mix your $4 box of GSC with plain-old tap.

Begin by having your brother-who-lives-with-you-rent-free line the cupcake pan with adorable colored cupcake wrappers. I chose yellow, blue, and blue/green striped. 

Next, instruct your live-in slave to place a GSC in each cup. We went with Thin Mints and Tagalongs for variety. Other GSC include Samoas, Trefoils and Do-Si-Dos. 

Have someone who owes you BIG TIME mix the appropriate amount of proper ingredients according to the side of the box in a bowl. 

Finally, have rude-boy-who-shocked-me-with-his-medical-electrical-device-thingy-even-though-I-let-him-totally-mooch-from-me scoop the batter into the cups 2/3rd full over the cookie. 

The box makes 18 cupcake. Unless someones little brother doesn't read the instructions and puts too little batter in each cup while you're not looking and you wind up with 21 cupcakes, but you don't feel like cleaning out the pan again for a batch of 3 cupcakes, but you don't want the batter to go to waste so you take turns licking the bowl, spatula and all spoons clean! 

The cupcakes bake for approximately 18 minutes. We let them cool for 30 minutes before frosting. Of course, I used the complimentary store-bought dark chocolate frosting and just spread it on with a knife. 

The Result:

The cookies baked at the bottom beautifully. They softened, but didn't melt so you wound with with a chewy, somewhat crunchy cupcake instead of an ooey-gooey mess which I feared. The Thin Mints added just a touch of cool, refreshing mint to the spongey cake. The Tagalongs added a sticky peanut butter taste. I took a few in to work and the rest drove 350 miles to Phoenix where my family gobbled them up. All were impressed and really enjoyed them. It really was a simple but interesting treat!