Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake

Before I say anything, I must say this: this is one heckuva post.

Meaning, it's really long.  And yes, I'm going to talk a lot.

So I'm taking a week off.  Literally, I am going to Minnesota.  Wayyy up north, up there by Canada.  Where the mosquitoes the size of baseballs roam.

Anyway.

I made this glorious cake for my birthday.  No way am I going to let someone else bake my own cake.  THE GLORY IS ALLL MIIIINE!!!

And it is a glorious cake.

A thick, two-layer yellow butter cake...

Frosted with brown sugar frosting...

With a layer of cookie dough balls and frosting in the middle...

Topped with the best chocolate chip cookies ever...

And sprinkled with mini chips.

Translation: Fantastic frosted with awesome, filled with amazing, and topped with insanely great.

It is the Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake.

Now, there have been several chocolate chip cookie dough cakes.  The one that initially inspired me was the Domestic Rebel's.  But what I ended up modifying was the one from Something Shiny, because it looked so delicious.

Now, you can follow whatever recipes you want, but here's why I chose the ones I did:

1. Cake - I got this recipe from Bakerella, and she is very rarely wrong.  Pretty much never, actually.

2. Frosting - This is the one recommended on Something Shiny.  However, see my note*.

3. Cookie dough - Again, I used the one recommended.  (These can be found at Fake Ginger.)

4. Cookies - I used the recipe that I posted about, from the Repressed Pastry Chef, because I'm so in love with these cookies and I just had to make them.

There, that's done.  And now, a few confessions:

1. This was my first time using butter flavor.  I hadn't even heard of it before, and, frankly, the idea of butter flavor still scares me.  Turns out it's a great way to make you think you're eating more butter than you actually are and send you running on a guilt trip.  Seriously, I think it might have the potential to be a weight-loss aid.

2. This was my first time using self-rising flour.  I know, I know, I'm a baker and I've never used it before.  I probably wouldn't have used it at all except I was sure which conversion from regular flour, salt, and baking powder (or is it soda?) to self-rising flour to use (there are many).

So there.  I've confessed.  And now it's time to drool.

Oh, and fyi, the cake all by itself is now my favorite cake ever. :D

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake

REQUIRES SOFTENED BUTTER

REQUIRES ROOM TEMPERATURE EGGS, MILK

REQUIRES CHILLING TIME

ORDER OF OPERATIONS:

1. Bake chocolate chip cookies.
2. Bake cake.
3. While cake is baking, make cookie dough.
4. While cookie dough chills, make frosting.

Chocolate Chip Cookies:

See recipe here.

NOTE: Make small cookies and medium cookies to decorate this cake.  Small cookies can be made with a teaspoon-size cookie scoop, while medium cookies can be made with the tablespoon-size.

1-2-3-4 Cake:

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

2 cups sugar

4 eggs, room temperature

3 cups self-rising flour

1 cup milk, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon butter flavor

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease two 9-inch cake pans.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter until fluffy.  Add sugar and beat well.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Add flour and milk, alternating and beginning and ending with the flour, and mixing well after each addition.
5. Add vanilla and butter flavor and combine.
6. Divide batter equally between the two prepared pans and bake 25-30 minutes.
7. Cool in pans 5-10 minutes before removing from pans and inverting on wire racks to finish cooling.

"Cookie Dough"**:

1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened

6 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour

7 oz. sweetened condensed milk***

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Beat in flour, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla, beating until smooth after each ingredient.
3. Stir in mini chips.
4. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour.

**You could probably use this recipe, as well.  I'm sure there's some slight, subtle difference, but whatever. (I actually recommend using the truffles one.)

***You might consider making a double batch of this since sweetened condensed milk comes in 14 oz. cans.  I had half a can lying around after this, and... you know my fondness for sweetened condensed milk.  NOT GOOD.

Brown Sugar Frosting:

3 sticks unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt*

3 tablespoons milk

2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1. In a large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar.
2. Mix in powdered sugar until smooth.
3. Add salt*, milk, and vanilla.  Mix until smooth.

*When I made this frosting, I found it to be incredibly salty.  I strongly suggest reducing or even completely omitting the salt from this recipe.  Salty caramel - good, salty frosting - baaaad.  You have no idea.

Assembly:

bag of mini chocolate chips

1. Form chilled cookie dough into balls with cookie scoop and place on a baking sheet/very large plate lined with wax paper.
2. Place 1/6 frosting in small bowl.  Add 1/2 cookie dough balls and gently toss until cookie dough balls are covered.  Add additional 1/6 frosting and remaining dough balls and gently toss to coat.
3. Spread dough-ball/frosting mixture on top of one cake with a rubber spatula.  Place other cake on top.
4. Seal-coat cake with frosting.
5. Chill 30 minutes in refrigerator or until set.
6. Frost with remaining frosting.
7. Place small cookies around the edge of the top of the cake.  Place medium cookies around the bottom of the sides.
8. Sprinkle remaining space on cake with mini semisweet chocolate chips.
9. Cover to store.

Take a deep breath.  It's a lot of instructions, and a lot of ingredients, and a lot of work, but it's totally worth it.

My advice: eat it in very small doses.  This cake has the potential to be quite lethal.

Now, breaking it down, thoroughly and slowly:

Cookies:

Make these cookies!  Try not to eat too many!

Cake:

Cream butter and sugar...

Add eggs...

Alternate adding flour...

...and milk...

Add flavorings and mix.  WORD OF WARNING: Butter flavor smells awful.  Your cake won't, but the flavor itself is not a pleasant odor.  Jussayin'.

Divide evenly between prepared pans...

...and bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees F.  Cool 5-10 minutes and invert onto wire racks to cool.  This is seriously the best cake I've ever made.  It came out totally level, which has pretty much never happened before.  Best cake EVAR.

Dough:
Make as directed, OR use my cookie dough truffles recipe.  I actually think it tasted better than the recipe I just gave you above.  Know why?  The dough balls had salt in them.  It's not really cookie dough without that salty taste, you know?  So it's not like I have anything against salt, it's just that salt in frosting is bad.  So let the dough chill for an hour...

Then form it into balls.

Frosting:
Cream butter...

...with light brown sugar...

Add powdered sugar and salt (IF YOU DARE)...

Add vanilla...

...and mix until smooth.

Assembly:
Stir those dough balls in with the frosting.

Spread the dough mixture thing on top of the first cake and smooth it down flat... (YUM!)

Seal coat your cake and let it chill for half an hour.  COVER YOUR FROSTING!  And do NOT refrigerate it!  Guess who did that and winded up with a bunch of hard, crusty frosting?

Frost the rest of your cake...

And decorate it.  Ohhhhh yes.

Don't bother trying to stick the medium cookies in the exact middle of the sides.  They're too heavy, so they just slide down anyway.

Have yourself a slice and bite into bliss.

Have a dough-licious day!
-JJ

Happy 4th in advance!