Neapolitan Ice Cream Cupcake
I look forward to this contest every year! Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious are hosting their annual Ice Cream Cupcake Contest. The only requirement is that the cupcake have a cake portion and a ice cream (or frozen) portion.
Coming up with an ice cream cupcake recipe was harder than you’d think. I had so many ideas swimming around in my head… But I wanted it to be a cupcake I could enjoy even with my lactose intolerance. Lucky for me, I’m able to find all sorts of dairy free ice cream these days. When I saw that the lactose free flavors at JPLicks were vanilla and strawberry, I couldn’t get the idea of strawberry ice cream out of my head. I bought a pint and headed home.
That night, I decided to taste some of the strawberry ice cream. I topped the ice cream with some chocolate chips and whipped cream. It’s such a classic and perfect combination. And thus, the idea of a Neapolitan Ice Cream Cupcake was born.
These cupcakes consist of a yellow cupcake base, layered with some strawberry ice cream, and frosted with chocolate cream cheese frosting. I love how the frosting looks like soft serve!
If you’ve never had an ice cream cupcake, I definitely recommend trying one. They’re great in the summer time and the flavor combinations are completely endless. Be sure to check out the Cupcake Project Facebook Page to see photos of all the other entries.
One Year Ago: Dark Chocolate Frosting
Three Years Ago: Pina Colada Cupcakes
Neapolitan Ice Cream Cupcakes
Yield: 12 cupcakes
Ingredients:
For the Neapolitan Ice Cream Cupcakes
12 half-filled yellow cupcakes, recipe follows
1 pint strawberry ice cream
Chocolate cream cheese frosting, recipe follows
For the Half-Filled Yellow Cupcakes
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp flour
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp cake flour (not self-rising)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup + 3 Tbsp sugar
1 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
5 Tbsp milk
For the Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted
Directions:
For the Neapolitan Ice Cream Cupcakes
Bake the cupcakes and allow to cool in the pan.
Take ice cream out of freezer to allow it to melt a bit while cupcakes are cooling.
With the cupcakes still in the pan, spoon semi-melted ice cream onto the cupcakes until liners are full. Place cupcake pan in freezer for 30 minutes.
Make chocolate cream cheese frosting and pipe a swirl onto the ice cream cupcakes.
Store in the freezer.
For the Half-Filled Yellow Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place 12 cupcake liners in two muffin pans. Into a medium bowl, sift together flours, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the milk and beginning and ending with the flour; beat until combined after each addition.
Divide batter between the prepared pans. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Allow cupcakes to cool in pan.
For the Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
Cream the cream cheese and butter together thoroughly.
Add the salt, vanilla, and powdered sugar.
Finally, mix in the melted chocolate and blend thoroughly until smooth.
If additional thickening is needed, add more sifted powdered sugar, a little at a time, until a spreadable consistency is reached.
Half-filled yellow cupcakes Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart
Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe adapted from Food Network
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
Jen, I think I just died and went to heaven! Long live the Ring Ding!! LOL
http://www.simplysweeter.blogspot.com
Love this theme, so fun! The whole menu sounds delicious 🙂
Hi Jen,
Wow! These babies look really authentic. I’ve seen a lot of faux Ding Dongs in my day, and yours rank right up there. Very nice job!
🙂 Jane
Oh, I LOVE Ding Dongs!!! And yours look fabulous!
Even at 8a on a monday morning, I feel like I could eat a whole stack of those. Great job, they look delicious!
There is a local baking partnership here in the Los Angeles area that makes individual sized cakes and treats. They also recreate classic favorites such as the Ho-Ho. Thought you might enjoy the link. http://www.cakemonkey.com/
Oh your Ding Dongs look perfect. Absolutely perfect!! They make me want to jump up and make them now. Goodness!! Thanks for sharing the photos and recipe with us. I’ve yet to make the 7-minute frosting, so I’m looking forward to that.
Oh my, what a great recipe!
You’re killing me! Now I have to think about when I can fit Ring Dings into my schedule this week! They’d be so much better from scratch than they would out of the box…
These & oatmeal creme pies were my absolute favorite as a kid. I think they were called King Dons when I ate them. I definitely need to try this!
Oh, how fun. WIsh I had a couple right now.
Ring Dings! :)But that’s what they were called when Drake’s made them and we lived in NYC. Once we moved to FL they were Ding Dongs. Or do I have that backwards, hmm now I’m not exactly sure. Either way it wasn’t I that ate them but my Mom. I’ll have to give them a whirl for her and score some brownie points, hee-hee!
Hope you have a safe and Happy Memorial Day weekend!
~ingrid
omigosh YUM!! they sure do remind me of hostess cupcakes
Your ding dongs look perfect! Great job!
I’ve been thinking of making these for my mother for her birthday next week…but since she LOVE chocolate peanut butter, I thought I would fill the cakes with a peanut butter version of the white cream. Any suggestions on what peanut butter cream I should fill them with??
I would love your input, I trust you more than myself in this matter, haha.
FYI for anyone interested, I made mine into cupcakes since I don’t have round cake pans. The cupcakes take about 25 minutes to bake at the same temp. Really good but tons of work! Oh yeah I got 32 cupcakes using 1/4 cup batter in each cup. I had plenty of filling but I had to made a little more ganache, BUT I was a little heavy with it in the beginning so if you keep that in mind you could have enough.
Love these…I am an East Coat gal and I knew what you meant lol! I will NOT buy these for my kids with what is used for ingredients, but you have inspired me to make them! Thanks!
Sorry to say but mine fell apart and it was entirely to much work. Much better to just go to the store and buy them.
These look just like the original, but I bet they’re so much more tasty. Great job!
beantownbaker — January 5th, 2013 @ 11:44 pm
They sure are better than the original – a lot more work though, but definitely worth it!
Can the coffee be substitutes with anything else?
beantownbaker — January 17th, 2013 @ 4:51 pm
The coffee just enhances the chocolate flavor. You can just use water instead if you don’t have any coffee or don’t like coffee.
I just made these for my mothers birthday(ring dings are the only dessert she enjoys) they came out great! Awesome recipe
beantownbaker — February 3rd, 2013 @ 9:46 pm
So glad you enjoyed them. Happy birthday to your mother!
hey.. made these.. testing recipes for a summer camp job I start this June.. so good, but might stick with cupcakes for kids..
took cake chunks and extra frosting.. made cake balls! Rolled in melted peanut butter then dripped chocolate over… YUM… love your site.. looking for more camp ideas.. kid friendly!
beantownbaker — February 24th, 2013 @ 10:28 am
Cupcakes definitely would be less messy for kids. I really like the portability of bars and brownies. I have tons of those on my blog too.
Making cake balls with PB and chocolate on top sounds amazing!
Never had these before but look good! I might just use the whole cake and cut out rings with the cutter and fill them up in the whole cake then cover in choc. What if you put marshmallow filling? Do you think it would be to soft to cut into pieces of cake?
OMG Jen, just saw this recipe linked from HuffPo article! Sorry, can’t get the link on my phone. 🙁 Slide show on manufactured foods that taste better homemade.
beantownbaker — August 4th, 2013 @ 6:43 pm
Thanks for letting me know! I found the post.
Amazing results. Rarely do I find the recipes that claim to be “just like” the original actually live up to those claims. This one did. LOVE.
beantownbaker — August 27th, 2013 @ 7:58 am
So glad you enjoyed them!
The recipe says to use filling same day. I need to make the cakes a day or 2 ahead of party. If I fill them right away, will they hold for a day or so in the refrigerator ? I don’ t want them to get soggy.
Can these be frozen?
Made these for a friend’s birthday party. Definitely time intensive…assembly took me forever. I made 16 cupcakes and 24 mini-cupcakes and had lots of extra cake batter. The cake is amazing, super moist and flavorful…but fally-aparty so hard to work with when dipping in ganache or spreading ganache over it. After I spent hours making these, they ended up smashed together in one side of the pan that I packed them in to the party. i would highly recommend transporting them in a cupcake tin or something where they will not move. The ganache never “dried” for me so mine were gooey on the outside too, and pretty much a mess to eat. Don’t get me wrong, they taste amazing and everyone enjoyed eating them…but if I was to do it over again, I would just use the ingredients to make a cake.
Do you have to use hot coffee? Can you just use plain hot water.
I don’t know what happened. I made Red Velvet “Fwinkies” (fake Twinkies), but covered them with chocolate so basically a hybrid or a Fwinkho. I have a delectovals pan. After piping in the 7-minute frosting, I dipped the bottoms in melted chocolate to seal and then covered the top in chocolate. The next day, I took them to a sorority luncheon as a treat. Well, the cream filling disappeared and I have to wonder did sealing the bottoms with the warm melted chocolate basically disintegrate the cream filling? I want to make something like this for a gender reveal next week, but I may have to change up the cream filling because I can’t leave the bottoms bare. Any advice?
Thank you!