High-Protein Cookie Dough Cupcakes

 When I originally set out to make this recipe, I tried just putting cookie dough right on top of a cupcake. Don’t get me wrong- it tastes awesome. I mean, it’s a cupcake with cookie dough on top. What’s not to love?

But I wanted these to have a cookie dough frosting to be authentic cupcakes. Because what’s a cupcake without frosting?

It took me a few tries to get it right, but the final cookie dough frosting is SO GOOD.

And this recipe allows you to be pretty heavy-handed with the frosting, because everybody knows that’s the best part!

Also, I shouldn’t have to make this note, but I feel like I do: when it comes to my recipes, what you see is what you get! I’ve seen so many food bloggers out there clearly adding extra toppings and dressing up their food to make the photos look super appealing, but then when you dive into the recipe yourself they don’t came out nearly as exciting.

That’s not the case with these coookie dough cupcakes. What you see is what you get!

This recipe makes plenty of frosting and uses plenty of chocolate chips and it’s all laid out for ya.

 

The magic 3 ingredient cupcakes

The base of these cookie dough cupcakes is my trusted 3-ingredient cupcake recipe.

I’ve used it quite a few times, and you can see it in my Protein Funfetti Cupcakes or my Protein Oreo Cupcakes.

All you need is cake mix, protein powder, and seltzer or diet soda! For real, that’s it.

Most cake mix requires eggs and oil to make a cake, and it turns out that any kinf of soda can be used as a direct replacement for these! The result is a light and airy cupcake, which is the exact texture we want!

Adding one scoop of protein powder doesn’t affect the voodoo science happening with the soda and it still works incredibly well.

I chose to use a sugar-free cake mix, but that’s only because I had it in my pantry. You can use any cake mix you’d like, but I definitely recommend some kind of yellow cake! It will mimic cookies the closest.

As far as soda is concerned, anything will do. I went with seltzer because it has no flavor, but even any kind of flavored soda will not affect the final product. I’ve used lime seltzer, 7-Up, and even Coke in my chocolate recipes, and you can never taste the soda in the final product. My only note for ya is to match the color- don’t use a dark soda like Pepsi or Coke in this specific recipe, or the final batter will be weird and brown.

By using the yellow cake mix and a clear soda or seltzer, our batter is going to look like cookie dough!

And when it baked up, it’ll come out looking like chocolate chip cookies, too! 

 

Making the cookie dough frosting

These started out as just cookie dough on a cupcake, but it was important for me to come up with a cookie dough frosting!

If you want to just make edible cookie dough, you can grab the exact recipe from my Cookie Dough Brownie Sandwiches.

We’re going to utilize something similar here, but there is one key difference that transforms this from cookie dough to cookie dough frosting.

The secret is cool whip!

The ingredients used here are very similar to my regular edible cookie dough, but I’m swapping out all the butter and sugar for cool whip! Why?

1. Because it’s delicious
2. It creates the perfect frosting consistency that we want vs just being globs of cookie dough

Any cool whip you’d like will work just fine, but for my cookie dough cupcakes, I went with fat-free cool whip. Calorically it is not all that much different, it just happened to be what I have. They have regular, sugar-free, lite, dairy-free, you name it! They will all work here.

Once we mix up all the ingredients for our frosting, we fold the cool whip in to smooth it out into a frosting. It creates a great texture, and keeps very well in the fridge.

Note: this is not whipped cream!

I’ve had someone make this mistake with my cheesecake bites before. This is not an aerosol can of whipped cream- it’s a frozen whipped topping that is almost like an ice cream. When thawed, it stays nice and smooth!

 

Frosting the cookie dough cupcakes

You have two options for frosting these cupcakes.

You can go the slightly more difficult route and put all the frosting in a plastic bag, then cut the tip off to create a piping bag…

This will make your cupcakes look very professional, but in my opinion, it’s not worth the trouble (as evident by the fact that all the cupcakes in the background did not utilize this method).

Instead, I much prefer to just use a knife and spread the frosting over the top…

Maybe not quite as pretty, but much easier! Simply glob a whole bunch on top, then spin the cupcake around while smoothening the frosting with your knife.

Originally, I cut little holes out of the top of these cupcakes and filled it in with even more cookie dough frosting, but I found it to be a bit much. Not only were they super sweet, but since these cupcakes are delicate, they didn’t hold up all that well.

I prefer these cupcakes to be light and fluffy with the cookie dough frosting complimenting them, and that’s exactly what these are!

 

Want more cupcakes?

I’ve got quite a few on the blog already with a few more on the way:

• Oreo Protein Cupcakes
• Protein Funfetti Cupcakes
• Microwave Mug Crumb Cake
• Protein Churro Bites (not cupcakes, but utilizes a similar recipe!)

Want more cookie dough?

Silly question. Yes, you do.

• Brownie Cookie Dough Sandwiches
• Protein Cookie Dough Parfait
• No-Bake Sugar Cookie Bars
• Giant 6oz Chocolate Chip Protein Cookie Recipe

 

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