Cookies and Cream Cake
Upon seeing this cake sitting prettily under its glass dome on the kitchen counter, my toddler learned to say cake. Now he loves sitting with me and looking at all the pictures of cakes and pies and other sweet treats whenever I scroll through my Pinterest or Instagram feeds, and exclaiming cake! and pie! over and over. How adorable is that?When I was a kid, and my mom asked me what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday, I remember asking for carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. My sister once asked for a pumpkin pie instead of cake. And my little brother always wanted a cookies and cream cake...
A few years ago, I posted a recipe for a cookies and cream cake which I decorated with cute little Oreo monster eyes for Halloween, but I used a boxed mix for that one, and I thought it was time to post a recipe for a good from-scratch recipe.
With my white velvet cake recipe as the base, this cake is moist and rich with butter and sour cream, with a fluffy, velvety crumb. In between each layer is a generous handful of chopped cookies, which soften a little as the cake sits, making it even better the second day (just like how an Oreo is so much better when it's completely soft from being dunked in milk). More cookies are folded into the buttercream for a classic speckled black and white finish, and of course, whole cookies are an easy and pretty decoration for the top of the cake.
After we all sampled this one, I had to put it away out of sight so that my toddler didn't ask for another taste every time he saw it on the counter. If you heard how he says pweeeease?, though, with a sweet, expectant smile and outstretched hand, your heart would melt, and you'd have a hard time not giving in...
Recipe Notes:
- Make sure that your dairy products (butter, egg whites, milk and sour cream) are all at room temperature for the best results with this cake.
- Personally, I think this cake is best made one day in advance (and stored un-cut in an air-tight container), which gives the cookies time to absorb some moisture from the cake so that they soften slightly. Although I only added cookies to the buttercream and not to the cake batter, you can certainly fold chopped cookies into the cake batter as well, if you like.
- For the cake photographed in this post, I cut the below recipe in half and baked it in three 6-inch pans. I've written the recipe below, though, for a standard-sized cake, which should be baked in three 8 or 9-inch pans.
- Please review this post and this post for baking tips, as I test and bake all my recipes at high altitude.
Cookies and Cream Cake
printable
Cake.
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 6 egg whites
- 1 1/2 cups whole milk
- 2/3 cup full-fat sour cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 3 3/4 cups cake flour or all-purpose flour
- 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon meringue powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
- pinch salt
- 1-3 tablespoons milk or cream, if needed
- 1 package Oreos
Preheat the oven to 350 and grease three 8-inch round cake pans.
In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar for 7-10 minutes, scraping the bowl down every few minutes, until very light and fluffy.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg whites, milk, sour cream and extracts, just to combine. With the mixer on low, add the wet ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture and mix for 1 minute to combine; it will look lumpy/curdled. Add the flour, baking powder and salt to the mixture; mix on low for 30 seconds, and then beat on medium speed for 2 minutes for a light and airy batter.
Divide the batter between the cake pans. Bake for 25-27 minutes until the centers are done, then set the pans on a wire rack, cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel and cool completely.
Buttercream.
In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter for 1 minute until smooth. With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar, meringue powder and salt and mix until combined. Add the vanilla and milk; increase the speed to medium high and whip for 4-5 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally, until very light and fluffy.
Reserve 8-10 whole Oreos to decorate the top of the cake. Roughly chop the rest of the cookies and set aside.
When the cakes are cool, run a knife around the edges and remove from the pans. Set one cake layer on a cake board or pedestal. Frost with a layer of buttercream, then generously sprinkle the top of the cake layer with cookies; repeat with the next layers, so that each layer is filled with frosting and cookies. Frost the cake all over with a thin crumb coat of buttercream, then chill for 20 minutes.
Take the remaining chopped cookies and chop more finely so that you don't have any huge pieces left, then mix into the remaining buttercream. Frost the cake with the cookie buttercream and decorate the top with whole cookies.
Recipe from Curly Girl Kitchen
Source: http://www.curlygirlkitchen.com/2018/06/cookies-and-cream-cake.html
