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 chocolate chip cookie bars. Now what if we turned 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.
My younger daughter and I made a TARDIS cake as a groom’s cake at our recent family wedding. We used dark chocolate buttercream frosting to assemble the layers. Now I’m going to tell you about Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake we used for the upper third of the cake.
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Looking for a sturdy cake recipe
The TARDIS cake was going to be tall...18-inches tall to be exact. I needed a layer cake recipe that would be sturdy enough to be baked in a 9- x 9-inch baking pan in as many layers as needed to get to be 12-inches tall.
When I came across Sally's Baking Addiction's Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake recipe, I was intrigued. Even though my needs were for a sturdy cake, I still wanted it to be tasty and unexpected (since the TARDIS was a surprise, I wanted the cake inside to surprise as well). This cake fit the bill nicely!
How to make a Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
As you might expect, the ingredients for this cake are very similar to the chocolate chip cookie recipe it came from. The only real difference is that cornstarch is added to soften the cake.
Incidentally, this recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake is quite similar to Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars (imagine that!). The main difference is how the butter is treated...it's melted rather than creamed (that, and I make brown butter, which adds to the yumminess of those bars!).
Creaming butter and sugar, adding in eggs & vanilla, then mixing in the flour mixture and chocolate chips. Pretty straightforward recipe, really.
Make enough layers for your use
This recipe is really adaptable for your needs, whether you want a 6-inch round cake, a 9-inch round cake, or a 9-inch square cake. And you can choose how many layers you want it to be.
For my needs, the Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake portion of the TARDIS was going to be 12-inches high. The original recipe made a five layer 6-inch round cake. Adaping this recipe for my purposes, I decided to double the recipe (thinking each layer would be 2-inches high), so I planned to make three layers in 9- x 9-inch baking pans.
When I made the layers, each measured only 1-inch high. I immediately decided to make another double batch of this recipe (that's four batches for those keeping score). Luckily, I had enough ingredients on hand!
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.
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
How to make sculpted cakes
This series of posts showed how we made our DIY Wedding Cake and our sculpted TARDIS Cake. You can use these ideas for your own sculpted cakes!
- Marshmallow Fondant - make fondant edible and easy to work with
- Dark Chocolate Buttercream Frosting - a delicious cake needs delicious glue...uhm...frosting
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake - a different type of layer cake, yummy and sturdy
- TARDIS Cake Crisped Rice Treats (aka Rice Krispy Treats) - when you're sculpting a cake (especially a tall one), Crisped Rice Treats are easy to shape and and tasty, too
📖 Recipe
Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
Special Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, (12-1/2 oz, 360g)
- 2 tsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (8 oz, 227g)
- 1 cup brown sugar, light or dark, packed (7 oz, 200g)
- ½ cup granulated sugar, (3-1/2 oz, 100g)
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2½ tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups chocolate chips, (6-1/2 oz, 180g)
- Dark Chocolate Buttercream Frosting, for cake assembly
Procedure
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray three 6-inch round cake pans with baking spray, line with parchment paper, then spray the parchment paper. Set aside.
- Whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or hand mixer), beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add the vanilla extract and beat again.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low until the dough comes together. With the mixer running on low speed, beat in the chocolate chips. The dough will be very thick.
- Divide the cookie dough between the cake pans, pressing the dough in evenly. If you have to bake in batches, cover any 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. If necessarily, run a sharp knife around the edges, then carefully invert the cakes onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
- If you have more batches to make, clean out pans, spray, line with parchment, spray parchment, then bake remaining cakes.
- Allow all the layers completely before frosting and assembling.
- Make some Dark Chocolate Buttercream Frosting to stack the layers. You can leave the sides bare or cover the cake completely, at your discrection.
- Slice into portions, serve, and enjoy!
Recipe Notes
- Make the recipe as directed and bake in five 6-inch round cake pans for about 20-22 minutes
- Make the recipe as directed and bake in three 9-inch round cake pans for about 22-25 minutes (the layers will be thin)
- Double the recipe and bake in three 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 two 9-inch round cake pans for about 20 minutes
- Halve the recipe and bake in three 6-inch round cake pans for about 20-22 minutes
