Of course it would happen that I am completely passionate about cake yet have lived with two roommates who, you know, like cake (because who doesn’t) but truly love…cookies.
To honor their penchants for cookies and satisfy my selfish desire to bake cake, I’ve spent much time immersed in the world of cookie-themed cakes. Last last year, I made this tiny cake for my old roommate who nearly shares my birthday (tiny only because we were still living off pounds of cake from my celebration). This year, my current roommate’s birthday is a whopping 5 months after mine, so a full on butter and sugar celebration in the form of a cookie dough cake was had.
So this cake: I mean. Anything with pockets of melty cookie dough tucked inside a brown sugary cake batter that bakes up into the puffiest graham cracker-hued cake you ever did see is going to be pretty amazing. But a cake of 4+ components wasn’t exactly smooth sailing, so here’s a review of sorts/what I learned:
- Next time, I might add more sweetener to the batter because the sweetness was pretty subtle.
- The suggested frosting wasn’t very successful–did you know boiling butter and brown sugar for 5 minutes will result in a sticky blob of black, hardened caramel? After I determined that a blob of those proportions will not turn into frosting no matter how long you whip it (whack it, really), I went with a basic buttercream that would have been fine except that I accidentally dumped a bunch of salt (“is that one dash of salt…or one dish?” One MILLION points for you if you get that reference) in during a clumsy moment.
- I learned cake crumbles do an amazing job of hiding a scant/sloppy frosting job (Because I am morally opposed to using more than one stick of butter at a time, I made a tiny amount of frosting that could only cover a very tiny baby), especially if you like a higher cake to frosting ratio.
- My absolute favorite part was decorating the cake with rice krispie treat “candles” (rice krispie treats squashed into shapes and stuck on the cake with toothpicks) and mini chocolate chip cookies.
In the end, my roommate had a super cute birthday celebration involving friends and beer and cheese and wine and cake and dumplings and no one said anything about the salty frosting or weirdly frosted cake so all was well.
All of that to say: if you have a cookie dough lover in your life, this cake is pretty awesome. Just don’t ever boil butter and sugar together to make frosting and always make extra rice krispies.
To make this cake, I used:
- This cake recipe (with white whole wheat flour, only 1/4 c. olive oil, almond milk, and half white sugar, half brown sugar).
- This cookie recipe for the cookies on top (literally the best cookies I’ve ever made. Literally.)
- 1 batch extra buttery rice krispie treats.
- This vanilla frosting, with less sugar. I recommend using your favorite frosting or heyy maybe something like this!
To assemble it, I used the Momofuku technique (pictured instructions here). If you want to assemble this triple layer, 6-inch cake the way I did, here’s what you do:
- Bake the cake in a 9×13-inch pan.
- Stamp out 2, 6-inch circles of cake with a 6-inch cake pan.
- Use some of the leftover cake to form the bottom layer of the cake by squashing the scraps into the 6-inch pan lined with wax paper. (reserve some cake scraps for the outside).
- Spread with frosting, add another circle of cake, spread more frosting, and add another circle of cake.
- I was able to unmold the cake right away at this point (the bottom layer held together quite well), but if it seems like it will fall apart, freeze the cake for a few hours or overnight.
- Frost the entire thing with a thin coat of frosting and use leftover cake scraps to decorate the sides. (Crumble the cake between your fingers and press gently into the sides of the cake.)
- Bake teaspoon-sized dollops of cookie dough for decoration on top.
- Prepare a pan of rice krispie treats. Once cool, use a sharp knife to cut your desired shapes out of a thin sheet of rice krispie goodness.
- Decorate and serve at room temperature to a crowd of adoring fans. Because this colassal effort deserves nothing but the most adoring of adorers!
More cake:
Momofuku Chocolate Chip Peach Cake:
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