Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake takes a favorite cookie and makes it into a soft and chewy cake studded with chocolate chips and an enticing brown sugar flavor. What a treat!
A cookie as cake
Show of hands…how many of you like chocolate chip cookies? Sixty-three…Sixty-four…ok, lots of you. I've made them into chocolate chip cookie bars before. Now what if that cookie was turned into a cake, soft and chewy, with that enticing brown sugar flavor, and layered with a thick dark chocolate buttercream frosting…drooling yet? I certainly am. In the last baking post I started telling you about the TARDIS cake my younger daughter and I made as a groom’s cake at our recent family wedding. That post was about the dark chocolate buttercream frosting we used for the layers. Now I’m going to tell you all about Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake we used for the upper third of the cake.
The TARDIS cake before we took it to the wedding. Just to give you a sense of scale, that cake circle under it is 14-inches in diameter
I’ve used recipes from Sally’s Baking Addiction many times before because it’s such a good resource for inventive and easy recipes (for instance, I've made a Checkerboard cake and cinnamon roll cookies, and learned how to weave pie crust). Sally does a wonderful job explaining and demonstrating how to make her products, with lovely pictures and videos. When I saw her recipe for a Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake, I was intrigued…our TARDIS cake was to measure 9-inches square and be 18-inches tall. I had been looking for a recipe to use for the TARDIS cake, and I needed something that was sturdy, able to hold its structure for the dimensions I needed, yet be tasty and unexpected (since the TARDIS was a surprise, I wanted the cake inside to surprise as well). This cake fit the bill entirely!
Simple ingredients are all that's needed to make an extraordinary cake
Ready for the oven
Soft, chewy, and delicious...ready to be layered
Make enough to use
The Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake portion of the TARDIS was going to be 12-inches high. Sally's recipe made a round cake measuring 6-inches in diameter and 5 layers tall. Adapting her recipe for my purposes, I decided to double her recipe (thinking each layer would be 2-inches high), so I planned to make 3 layers in 9- x 9-inch baking pans. However, when I made the layers, each measured only 1-inch high. I immediately decided to make another double batch of this recipe (that's 4 batches for those keeping score). Luckily, I had enough ingredients on hand!
Not tall enough...time to bake more
This Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake was perfect for the large size of our TARDIS cake, and the layers stayed soft and delicious when they were served several days after I had baked them. Frosting them with the Dark Chocolate Buttercream Frosting was, as they say, just icing on the cake. Thick, chewy, and rich, I was quite happy we served this cake at the wedding.
One layer down...
Here's the upper third of our TARDIS cake ready to go
Next time we’ll talk about the Crisped Rice Treats we adapted for the base of the TARDIS cake, and how the final cake was assembled. Until then, have dream sweet Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake dreams…I know I will!
Slainté! L’chaim! Cheers!
Tammy
Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (12-1/2 oz, 360g)
- 2 tsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter (8 oz, 227g), at room temperature
- 1 cup brown sugar (7 oz, 200g), light or dark, packed
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (3-1/2 oz, 100g)
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (6-1/2 oz, 180g)
Procedure
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Spray three 6-inch round cake pans with cooking spray, line with parchment paper, then spray the parchment paper. Parchment paper helps the cookie cakes seamlessly release from the pans.
- Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or hand mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together on medium-high speed until smooth and creamed, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl and beat again as needed to combine.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. With the mixer running on low speed, beat in the chocolate chips. The dough will be thick and sticky.
- Divide the cookie dough between however many cake pans you're using. Press evenly into each. If baking in batches, cover any cookie dough that isn't being used and set aside at room temperature.
- Bake for 20-22 minutes or until the cake layers are lightly brown on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean.
- Allow cakes to cool for 10 minutes in the pans. Run a sharp knife around the edges, then carefully invert the pan so the warm cookie cake slides out. (At this point you can clean out pans, spray, line with parchment, spray parchment, then bake remaining cakes if needed.) Set the baked cakes on a wire rack to cool completely. The cakes must be completely cool before frosting and assembling.
- Cover leftover cake tightly and store in the refrigerator for 5 days.
Recipe Notes
- Make the recipe as directed and bake in 5 6-inch round cake pans for about 20-22 minutes
- Make the recipe as directed and bake in 3 9-inch round cake pans for about 22-25 minutes (the layers will be thin)
- Double the recipe and bake in 3 9- x 9-inch cake pans for 25-28 minutes.
- Quadruple the recipe for a 6-layer 9-inch square cake (say you're making the 12-inch high portion of a TARDIS cake, for example), using 9- x 9-inch cake pans for 25-28 minutes
- Halve the recipe and bake in 2 9-inch round cake pans for about 20 minutes
- Halve the recipe and bake in 3 6-inch round cake pans for about 20-22 minutes
Let's Talk