Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake

I am a huge fan of cookie dough.  Cookie dough ice cream, raw cookie dough from scratch, those little cookie dough bites you find at the movie theaters – I can go on and on!  But I think my sister is a bigger fan of cookie dough, which is why I chose to make her this cake. Oh by the way, she turned 21!  Cooking runs in the family, and she gave me the recipes for the Apple Dumplings and the Pulled Pork Pockets.

The entire cake, with the exception of the chocolate chips, was made from scratch.  I’ve never made cake batter from scratch before, so I knew this would be quite an adventure.  I modified the original recipes for the cake, frosting, and cookie dough from other sources on the internet to tailor them to what I had in my cabinets.  I broke down each part of the cake into separate sections, so refer to all three ingredient lists to see what you need.  This is what I came up with…

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The (1, 2, 3, 4) Cake

• 1 cup (2 sticks) of butter – softened at room temperature
• 2 cups of sugar
• 3 cups of self rising flour – I didn’t feel like going out and getting this kind of flour, so I did some research and learned that you can add 1 1/4 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp of salt for EVERY CUP of all purpose flour you use, substituting out the self rising flour.
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Start off by preheating your oven to 350°F – make sure your rack is in the middle of the oven.
2. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) circular cake pans.  Want to know how to do it right?  SEE BELOW!
3. Cream the butter in your mixer until fluffy.
4. Add in sugar and continue to cream for 5-10 minutes.  Scrape the batter from the bowl a couple of times to make sure it’s all getting mixed together.
5. Add the eggs, 1 at a time.
6. Add flour and milk alternately to creamed mixture – I’ve never done this before, but I have to admit, I liked the outcome.  Make sure you end with the flour to stiffen it all up in the end.
7. Add vanilla continue to beat until it’s just mixed.  You should never eat raw batter, but this was delicious.
8. Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Hold a pan 3 or 4 inches above counter, and drop it flat onto counter.  This will help to level out the cake.
9. Bake for 30-35 minutes until a knife or toothpick can come out of the middle of the cake cleanly.
10. Cool in pans for 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 (This will ease your cake decorating)

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Greasing Your Cake Pans:

1. Trace around the bottom of each pan with parchment paper and trim just inside the lines.
2. Spray cooking spray in the pans and line with the parchment paper. Coat the entire pan again.
3. Sprinkle flour throughout the pan and tap the edge of the pan and rotate.  You want to make sure a thin layer of flour is evenly distributed over the entire surface.  Try it for yourself, you won’t be disappointed!

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The (Eggless) Cookie Dough

Because you won’t be cooking the cookie dough in the cake, you want to make sure the raw cookie dough is eggless, we wouldn’t want anyone getting sick…

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 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 (plus extra for decorating)

Directions:

1. Combine the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, should only take a few minutes.
2. Add in flour, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla until smooth.  Stir in the chocolate chips.
3. Cover and refrigerate until the mixture stiffens.

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The Buttercream Frosting

I would double this recipe.  You’ll end up with a little extra, but you’ll need more to cover the inside of the cake and the surface.

• 1 cup sugar
• 6 Tbsp flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (you could use any flavoring you want)

Directions:

1. Add sugar and flour into a medium sauce pan.  Whisk together until mixed thoroughly.
2. Add milk to pan and whisk until smooth. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens.  You’ll think nothing is happening until – BOOM – it thickens.  Like magic.
3. Just cook for just a few minutes after it begins to set, and keep stirring, you don’t want it to set or burn.
4. Remove from heat and let cool completely.  Unfortunately, the birthday girl and the rest of the family got impatient so I had to mix in the butter a little earlier, and the frosting was a bit runny, and I forgot to frost the middle of the cake.  If you can, wait until it cools completely, and frost the middle of the cake!
5. Once cooled, combine with butter in large mixing bowl or stand mixer and whip like crazy.  I whipped for a long time to help cool the frosting.  Beat for at LEAST 5 minutes (closer to 10) until the mixture is light and fluffy.
6. Take the cake out of the freezer and decorate.

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