Red Velvet Romany Cream Cupcakes

I don't know if they have Romany Creams anywhere other than South Africa...is it like Peppermint Crisp, that you can only find it here?
Surely there's an alternative out there somewhere!! There has to be in order to make these delicious little monsters!!

For those of you that don't know what a Romany Cream is....it's like one of my most favouritest cookies EVER!! There are a few other cookies that I like more, but they are all home-made. I will be sure to share the recipes...EVENTUALLY!

Romany Creams are the most delightful chocolate coconut cookies that are sandwiched together with a milk chocolate filling. If you dunk them in your tea for a second or two, the chocolate filling melts a little and it tastes like heaven!!

 

I have tried to make my own Romany Creams but nothing comes close to the real deal! Only the bakers man can!! 

This recipe yields 30 delicious cupcakes all in less than 2 hours!

So this is how it goes:

What you'll need:

Cupcakes
2 1/2 Cups of Flour
30 ml Cocoa
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking soda)
1/2 tsp Salt
1 Cup Butter (Unsalted, Softened)
1/3 Cup Cooking Oil
2 Cups of Sugar
4 Large Eggs
1 Cup Sour Cream
1/2 Cup Milk
30 ml Red Food Colouring
2 tsp Vanilla Essence
+/-15  Romany Cream Cookies

Cream Cheese Vanilla Frosting
250 grams Plain Cream Cheese
1/4 Cup Butter/White Margarine
2 tbsp Sour Cream
+/- 600 grams Icing Sugar (Sifted)
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
+/-7 Romany Cream Cookies (Depending on how sweet you like your icing!)
15 Cookies for decorating

How you'll do it:

Cupcakes

1. Preheat the oven to 180° C. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a medium sized bowl, set aside.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time. Mix in the sour cream, milk, oil, food colouring and vanilla essence until well blended.
3. Gradually beat in the flour mixture on a low speed until just blended. Do not over blend.
4. Crush the cookies until quite fine and stir them into the cupcake batter.
5. Line your cupcake pans with paper cupcake cups, and spoon the batter into the cups filling each one 2/3rds full.
6. Bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes/until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool before icing.

Cream Cheese Vanilla Frosting
Beat the cream cheese, butter, sour cream and vanilla in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the sifted icing sugar until smooth. Split the 7 cookies and remove the milk chocolate from both sides of each cookie. Pulse the cookies in a blender/food processor until its a really fine crumby consistency. It is important that there are no large chunks of cookie because they will clog the piping tip. Stir the cookie crumbs into the icing. Use a Wilton 1M tip to pipe the icing onto the cupcakes. Cut the remaining cookies in half and place a half cookie on top of each cupcake and Voila! You're done! 30 delicious little monsters waiting to sabotage your diet!! But hey it's all about moderation!

I really hope you enjoy the cupcakes as much as I do!