RECIPE: Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

adapted from foodnetwork.com and wilton.com

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Difficulty:
Taste:

Pros: Super soft and super yummy!
Cons: The icing adds some extra time to the preparation, and decorating the cake to actually look good can take some patience and practice if you're not familiar with the techniques.
Bottom Line: The best parts of a cookie and a cake combined into one heavenly dessert...what's not to love??

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This is an awesome cookie cake. Be careful not to overcook it, and it will be soft, slightly dense, and oh-so-delicious. The majority of your time with this recipe will be spent waiting for the cake to bake and cool and decorating the cake (at least, if you're amateur decorators as we are). It does take some extra time to make the homemade icing rather than buying something from the store, but this is an icing that is easy to decorate with and actually tastes pretty good. We like it a lot more than the icing you'll get on most grocery store cakes. And of course, when you make your own icing, you can tailor the colors to the occasion (LSU or Saints tailgating, anyone?). So we suggest you try to ice the cake yourself, even if you're new to it. (If we can make the icing look halfway decent, certainly you can, too.) But if you are intimidated by the homemade icing, please don't be intimated by the cookie cake...it is super easy to make and would taste great on its own. This dessert is definitely worth the effort and makes enough to serve a whole crowd. So try this instead of traditional cake for your next birthday celebration, or for the next time you are entertaining, or for your next, say, Tuesday! We bet you can't make this cookie cake just once!

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened 1 cup packed light brown sugar 1/2 cup granulated sugar 2 large eggs 2 cups + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips 3/4 cup white chocolate chips

Icing:

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter softened 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 4 cups (about 1 lb.) confectioners' sugar

2 tablespoons milk 2 tablespoons cornstarch desired food coloring

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cut parchment paper to cover the bottom of 14-inch, light colored, round pizza pan. (If you don't have a pizza pan, you can use a 13x9 casserole dish - your cookie cake will just be thicker). Grease the parchment paper.

Cream the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and butter in large bowl. Add one egg, then beat the mixture until the egg is well combined. Add the second egg, and beat the mixture again.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and egg mixture a bit at a time, mixing as you go. Add the vanilla extract, and mix until everything is well combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. We have generally use Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips (our favorite) and white chocolate chips, but use your favorites! We've also done dark chocolate chips (for the milk chocolate) and peanut butter chips (for the white chocolate). Anything goes here! Spread the mixture across the bottom of the prepared pan.

Bake until the edges are golden and the cookie is set. The center of the cake should be slightly soft. This generally takes 15-18 minutes for a pizza pan, and 17-20 minutes for a 13x9 dish. Just keep an eye on it...the cake is much better a little undercooked then overcooked - trust us! Let the cake cool for about 10 minutes, and then carefully transfer it to a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way. (Don't worry about little cracks that may occur in the transfer - you won't notice these at the end.)




For the icing, beat the shortening and butter in a large bowl until fluffy. Add the vanilla and beat to combine. Add the confectioners' sugar one cup at a time, beating after each cup. Make sure you scrape the sides of bowl occasionally while doing this.

In a separate small bowl, combine the milk and cornstarch. Stir until the cornstarch is dissolved. Add this to icing mixture, and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add your desired food coloring and mix well. This makes a good bit of icing - if you are doing two colors, you can divide the icing at this point into two bowls and color each separately. This should be more than enough icing to decorate your cake with two colors.

Use this icing immediately to decorate the completely cooled cookie cake. Use a decorating set with a piping bag, or cut the corner off of a ziploc bag and squeeze the icing out that way. If you don't use the icing immediately, store in the refrigerator in an air-tight container for up to one week. If it's stored in the fridge, you will need to beat the icing again before use.