Bridal Shower "Derby" Cupcakes for Michelle

My cousins fiance was having a Kentucky Derby themed bridal shower and her made of honor asked me to make her cupcakes. She had sent me a recipe she found online when doing a search for Derby things. The only think I omitted was the pie crust, I had to travel from North Port to Orlando (about 3.5 hours) with these and that was hard enough. I didn't want to add in the standing up pie crust because I figured they wouldn't hold up for the ride! Below is the recipe I used to make these...they were really yummy, almost taked like cookie dough cupcakes. I made a combo of mini cupcakes and standard size cupcakes.

Cupcake:

3 cups all purpose flour

2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2 1/4 C packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 c buttermilk
1/2 c finely chopped pecans
1/2 c mini chocolate chips
1 t vanilla

Garnish:

1 refrigerated pie crust

mini chocolate chips
chopped pecans

Icing:

8 oz cream cheese at room temperature

1/2 c unsalted butter at room temperature
1 c brown sugar
1 pound powdered sugar
1 t vanilla

Preheat the oven to 325. Line muffin tins with cupcake liners

Cupcakes: Cream butter and brown sugar until smooth. Add eggs one at a time. Sift together flour, salt & baking powder in separate bowl. Add half of the buttermilk to the egg/sugar mixture. Add half of the dry ingredients. Add other half of buttermilk then other half of the dry ingredients. Mix well. Add vanilla.

Mix in chocolate chips and finely chopped pecans until just combined.

Scoop out into cupcake liners (about 3/4 full) and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Cool.

 

Lay out refrigerated pie crust on a cookie sheet and poke with a fork several times. Cook according to package directions until just golden brown. Break into large pieces.

 

Frosting: cream together cream cheese, butter and brown sugar. Beat until well combined. Add 1 lb of powdered sugar slowly until all is combined. Add vanilla.

After the cupcakes are cooled, frost (I used a star icing tip and a piping bag to frost them). Garnish with a chopped pecans, mini chocolate chips, 1 large piece of pie crust. Sprinkle more crumbled pie crust on top.