Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

My favorite cookie is, of course, the chocolate chip cookie! I love chocolate chip cookie dough, too, so running across this recipe on Pinterest caught my eye. This was my second batch of cupcakes for my husband's shop and they turned out perfectly. The key to keeping the cookie dough dough-ey is freezing the balls for at least 2 hours before baking. By freezing it you're ensuring that the dough doesn't bake quickly and turn into a cookie.
When you bite into this cupcake, you want to get the cakey yumminess of the cupcake with the dough-ey goodness of the cookie dough. It's definitely a guilty pleasure cupcake and that's just all right with me! The cupcake batter made about 24 cupcakes but I had plenty of cookie dough leftover, so what did I do? Yep, baked it as a cookie for the garnish. And by the way, this cookie dough recipe is AMAZING! I love it better than the Nestle Tollhouse recipe.

What you'll need:

For cupcakes

1 box yellow cake mix

1 1/3 c. water

1/3 c. canola oil

3 eggs

For cookie dough

1 1/2 c. all purpose flour

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. sea salt

1/2 c. butter, softened

1/4 c. white sugar

1/2 c. brown sugar

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 c. mini chocolate chips 

Preparation:

1. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and sea salt; set aside. Beat the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until smooth. Add 1 egg and the vanilla extract and beat until smooth. Mix in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips; mixing just enough to evenly combine. Form the dough into tablespoon-sized balls; place onto a baking sheet, and freeze until solid, about 2 hours.
2. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.
3. Beat 3 eggs in a large bowl with an electric mixer to break up. Add the cake mix, water, and canola oil; continue beating for 2 minutes on medium speed. Spoon into the prepared cupcake liners, filling each 2/3 full. Place a frozen cookie dough ball on the top center of each cupcake.
4. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the cake portion of the cupcake (not the cookie dough ball) comes clean, about 20 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
5. For the frosting, I just used a store brand instead of making my own. So you can definitely do something different than I did!

Recipe courtesy of: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Chip-Cookie-Dough--Cupcake--The-BEST-Cupcake-Ever/Detail.aspx?src=etaf