Guess what? This is my 100th blog post! Not just any dessert would do for this milestone, so I chose something super special: a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake. I’ve been eying this cake for over a year now and finally made it! It is AMAZING! If you love chocolate chip cookies, you will adore this cake. It’s a real treat. 🙂 This amazing dessert is a 2-layer yellow cake that sandwiches a delicious slathering of buttercream frosting mixed with chunks of cookie dough, topped with delectable chocolate chip cookies. Don’t be intimidated by the length of the recipe, if you split the process up over a couple of days, you’ll see that it’s not that hard to make a fab cake. Here’s to the next 100 posts!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake Print Recipe Here
From Something Shiny
1-2-3-4 Cake
From Something Shiny, Adapted from Paula Deen
Ingredient
1 cup butter (2 sticks), room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 cups self-rising flour*, sifted
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup milk, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp butter flavoring (optional)
*An easy substitute for self-rising flour is to add 1-1/4 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt for EACH cup of flour.
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) cake pans. On parchment paper, trace around the bottom of each pan and trim just inside the line. Spray pan with cooking spray, then line with trimmed parchment. Spray again, making sure to coat entire pan. You can smooth it out with a pastry brush if you want. Then sprinkle with flour, tapping the edge of the pan with the heel of one hand as you rotate the pan with the other. This ensures that the flour is evenly distributed over the entire surface.
Using an electric mixer, cream butter until fluffy. This will take a few minutes. Scrape the bowl and continue mixing.
Add sugar and continue to cream well for 6 to 8 minutes, scraping down the bowl a couple of times to make sure it’s all getting mixed in and fluffy.
Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape.
Add flour and milk alternately to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour.
Add vanilla and butter flavoring and continue to beat until just mixed.
Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Level batter in each pan by holding pan 3 or 4 inches above counter, then dropping it flat onto counter. Do this several times to release air bubbles and assure you of a more level cake. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until done. Cool in pans 5 to 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto cooling racks lined with plastic wrap. Wrap tightly and put in the freezer for at least 1 hour prior to decorating.
The Best Buttercream Frosting EVER
From Something Shiny
Ingredients
2 cups sugar
12 Tbsp flour
2 cups milk
2 cups unsalted butter (4 sticks)
2 tsp vanilla extract (you could use any flavoring you want)
Directions
Measure sugar and flour into a medium sauce pan. Whisk together to incorporate the flour into the sugar. This makes it easier to dissolve. Add milk to pan and whisk until smooth. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens. It will seem like nothing is going to happen, when all of the sudden, it thickens up. Cook for just a few minutes after it begins to set up. Keep stirring; you don’t want it to burn-and it will.
Remove from heat and let cool completely.
Once cooled, combine with butter in large mixing bowl or stand mixer and whip like crazy (use whisk attachment). Beat for at LEAST 5 minutes (closer to 10) until the mixture is light and fluffy.
Use immediately. It can be kept in the fridge, but it hardens considerably and will need to warm up a bit before being spreadable.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Source: tastingtable, Recipe adapted from Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes, by David Lebovitz (Ten Speed Press)
Yield: about 4 dozen cookies, you’ll need about 2 dozen for the cake (feel free to cut the recipe in half if you don’t want extras for later)
Ingredients
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups nuts (such as walnuts, pecans, almonds or macadamia nuts), toasted and coarsely chopped or 2 cups of oats
14 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped into roughly 1/2-inch chunks
DIRECTIONS
Combine flour, soda and salt it small bowl. In large mixing bowl or stand mixer, combine butter and both sugars. Beat until smooth, it does NOT need to be light and
fluffy. Add eggs one at a time scraping sides of bowl as needed, then add in vanilla.
Add flour mixture to butter mixture and beat on low JUST until incorporated. Add nuts and chocolate, blend on low until just mixed in or mix them in by hand with spoon.
Scrape dough out onto the counter that’s been dusted with flour. Divide in 4 pieces and shape into logs. Wrap tightly in wax paper, then in plastic wrap. Place in fridge and chill overnight or at least a few hours. You can also put the logs in a freezer bag and have dough on hand when the urge strikes. They’ll keep at least a month tightly wrapped.
The next day (or two or three – it’s SO handy to have this dough made ahead!), preheat the oven to 350°F, unwrap dough logs and slice in 1/4” slices, keeping them as close to the same size as possible so they bake up evenly. Place on parchment lined baking sheets a couple of inches apart. Bake about 10 minutes, checking half way to see if the pans need to be turned to bake evenly. Cookies should be lightly browned and centers just set. Let cool on pans about 5 minutes then transfer to cooling racks.
Cookie Dough Filling
Source: fakeginger
Ingredients
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
7 ounce sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
Directions
Combine the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add in the flour, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips. Cover and refrigerate until the mixture has firmed up. Roll the dough into little balls. Can make ahead and keep in fridge a few days before use.
To assemble the cake
Place one layer of cake on a plate.
Put about 1/4 of the frosting in a small bowl and add most of the cookie dough balls. Mix it up. Spread over the first layer of cake. Fill in the holes with more frosting and the remaining cookie dough balls.
Place the second layer of cake on top of the frosting/cookie dough. Frost your cake with a thin layer of frosting. Put the cake in the fridge to allow the frosting to firm up a bit. Finish frosting and immediately decorate with your cookies and chocolate chips.
Pictures for the 1-2-3-4 Cake
Prepare 2 9-inch cake pans by lining the bottom with parchment paper, spraying them with cooking spray, and sprinkling flour all around the pan.
Cream butter until it is fluffy.
Add the sugar.
Cream with your electric mixer for 6-8 minutes until fluffy.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add 1 cup of flour and mix.
Add 1/2 cup of milk and mix. Repeat (1 more cup of flour, mix; 1/2 cup of milk, mix; last cup of flour, mix).
Add the vanilla and beat until just mixed.
Pour the batter evenly into the 2 prepared cake pans. Tap the pans onto the counter to even out the batter. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Done!. Let the cakes cool for 5-10 minutes in the pans and then invert them onto a cooling rack lined with plastic wrap. Cool completely and then wrap tightly with plastic wrap and place in the freezer at least 1 hour before decorating.
Pictures for the Buttercream Frosting
Whisk together the flour and sugar in a medium pan.
Add the milk and whisk together until smooth.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. Cook for a few minutes as the mixture is thickening up.
Let the mixture cool completely.
Combine the mixture with the butter and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and with the whisk attachment, whip for 5-10 minutes.
Whip until the mixture is light and fluffy. It’s best to use the frosting immediately.
Pictures for the Chocolate Chip Cookies
Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.
Add butter and sugars to a large mixing bowl.
Beat until smooth.
Add eggs one at a time. I accidentally added my vanilla with the first egg! Not a big deal, but you are supposed to add the vanilla after the eggs have been incorporated.
After the eggs and vanilla are mixed in, add the flour mixture and beat until just incorporated.
Add your chocolate and nuts (in my case, oats because I forgot to buy nuts and didn’t want to run to the store!). Use a good quality chocolate, I used Ghiradelli chips.
Once the dough is mixed, portion the dough into 4 logs.
Wrap in wax paper and then tightly in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least a few hours. Since the cake only needs 2 dozen cookies, place 2 of the logs in the freezer for future cookie emergencies. 🙂 They will keep for up to a month in the freezer.
After the cookies have chilled for at least a few hours (I let mine chill overnight), slice each log into 12-16 slices (depending on the size of cookie you want for decorating the cake). I sliced one log into 12 (for the sides of the cake) and one log into 14 (for the top of the cake).
Place the little cookie nuggets onto a greased or parchment lined baking sheet.
Bake on 350 for about 10 minutes.
Pictures for the Cookie Dough Filling
With a hand-mixer, beat together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the flour, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla.
Beat until smooth.
Mix in your mini chips and refrigerate.
Once the dough has chilled, use portion your dough out into small balls. I used a melon-baller.
The cookie dough is ready!
Pictures for assembling your cake
Place one layer of cake on a plate.
Add some of your cookie dough balls to about 1/4 of the frosting.
Spread onto your bottom layer of cake. Fill in the cracks with more frosting and dough balls.
Place your second layer of cake on top of the frosting/dough balls.
Slather on a thin layer of frosting. Let this firm up in the fridge and then finish frosting.
Decorate your cake with your cookies.
The Results!!
I’m gonna need a bigger fork…
There, that will do!
This looks amazing! I hope I am not drowning you in comments, but your site is perfect!
Thank you so much for your comments and kind words! That makes my day 🙂 This cake is one of my favorite desserts!