I picked up a copy of Family Circle magazine almost 2 years ago because of the picture on the cover. It was of a cake that I knew Jesse would love. I tucked it away, planning on making it for his next birthday. Then our world was flipped and flopped and he spent the next birthday in China. I made it up to him by bringing cupcakes the next month when I flew to San Diego for a visit, but I didn’t forget about this cake. Thankfully (for my cake baking sake) this year he didn’t have to leave for China until after his birthday!
After cracking open the magazine and getting a good look at the recipe, I decided to make a few changes. The magazine recommended a cream cheese frosting filling between the layers and whipped cream to frost the outside. I love cream cheese frosting, but it’s probably Jesse’s least favorite, and honestly it didn’t fit with my cookies and creme vision. So I decided to go with what is quickly becoming my go-to frosting for chocolate cakes, Fluffy Vanilla Frosting. Like I said when I used it for the Cherry Coke Cupcakes, the milk in it gives it a whipped cream like taste but it’s as sturdy as a buttercream. So I decided to use it instead. And it worked perfectly.
Cookies and Creme Oreo Cake
Ingredients
Cake
1 1/4 cups All-purpose Flour
2/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder (or Hershey’s Special Dark)
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
3/4 cup Unsalted Butter
1 1/2 cups Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla
3 large Eggs, room temperature
1 1/4 cups Buttermilk
Frosting
Scant 1/2 cup Flour
1 1/2 cups Milk
2 tsp Vanilla
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) Butter, softened
1 1/2 cups Granulated Sugar
25-30 oreos
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8-inch cake pans with butter and flour.
Into a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of a standing mixer, or a large bowl using a hand held mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. About 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated and scraping down sides as needed.
With mixer on low speed, add 1/3 of the dry ingredients, mix until incorporated. Then add 1/2 of the buttermilk, mix until incorporated. Repeat until the last 1/3 of flour has been used. Mix until incorporated and then beat for 1 additional minute.
Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared pans. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the sides begin to pull away from the edges. Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn the cakes out onto the racks and allow the cakes to cool completely.
While the cakes are baking, prepare the frosting. In a saucepan, whisk together the flour and milk and cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens (I would compare it to mashed potatoes). It is very important to whisk continuously so clumps don’t form. This took me about 4-5 minutes, but it’s best to go by texture.
Set milk mixture aside in an ice bath and allow to cool completely.
In a medium bowl, (or bowl of a standing mixture fitted with a whisk) beat together the butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and beat for 1 minute. Add the cooled milk mixture and beat on high for 3-5 minutes. If it looks separated, keep beating.
I’m a huge fan of cake!! Here are some of my favorites!
Classic Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting
Chocolate Hazelnut and Salted Caramel Chocolate Birthday Cake
Red Velvet Cake
Not-Ice Cream Sundae Cake
Cake Assembly
When the cakes are completely cool, cut each cake in half* horizontally. Use 1/3-1/2 cup of frosting to fill between each layer. When all the layers are stacked, set aside 1/2 cup of frosting then use rest to frost the outside.
Using a ziploc bag and a rolling pin, crush all but 6 of the Oreo cookies. Apply the cookie crumbs to the sides of the cake**.
Use the reserved 1/2 cup of frosting to create 6 swirls on the top of the cake, place a cookie in each swirl.
Serve with a very tall glass of milk.
*If you don’t have cake leveler tool, you can use a knife to score the cake half way up all the way around. Then place a clean piece of fishing wire or floss in the groove and slice away.
**I set my cake plate over a large piece of parchment paper to catch the extra crumbs. It can get a little messy.
Cake adapted from Family Circle Magazine, February 2009. Frosting as I previously posted here, from Tasty Kitchen
>This is absolutely gorgeous, I just want a huge slice.
Your photos & blog are absolutely amazing lately, I can't wait to see what's next every day!
huge kudos to you!
>@ Jill – Thank you so much! You just made my day!
>Beautiful cake! I love the contrast of the black and white, looks amazing!
>This looks and sounds amazing!!
>Yum! I think this will be Blair's next birthday cake, too bad I have to wait until August :/
>omg, how good does that look? I havent baked in a while, might have to try this out over the weekend! definitely a crowd pleaser! Thanks for sharing
>This is almost too much awesomeness for my eyes to handle.
>Looks so yummy ~ will definitely be added to my "must makes"!!! Thank you!
>This looks absolutely heavenly! I like your adjustments to the frosting. Beautiful presentation, too!
>This really does sound amazing!
>He incluido tu publicación en Mis Favoritas de esta semana, si quieres verlo está en
http://blocderecetas.blogspot.com/2011/10/mis-favoritas-halloween.html
Espero que te guste!
>Mm I love cookies and cream (though oddly not Oreos by themselves…). These look great! I just posted a Halloween Oreo cupcake myself 🙂
>I love cookies and cream. Your cake come out so pretty and professional looking! I love the layers and the outside decoration.
>This cake was beautiful and delicious! I think next time I'll double the icing though… It could have just been since my family eats the icing as we make it?? 🙂 but I wasn't able to have as much on the cake as I would have preferred. Absolutely delicious though! We ate it cold and it was soooo good! Thanks!
When I made the icing it started to delegate and tasted like straight butter and flour. Did this happen to anyone else? I re read the directions and quantity and I didn’t do anything different or miss anything and this still happened. I am pretty dissapointed because it was for my boyfriends birthday today, now it’s ruined.
I’m sorry, I hate that it didn’t work for you. It’s hard to say exactly what went wrong. With this icing I’ve found that really just beating the heck out of it (and then beating some more) is the key. I make this frosting all the time and I’ve never had a problem with it separating. Wish I could be more help.
Auto correct put delegate I meant separate
I made this yesterday for my daughters boyfriends birthday. It was delicious! The frosting I’ve never made before and thought ok this is weird but it was the best….not real sweet, just perfectly fluffy and creamy…
I will be making this cake or my husbands birthday this weekend…I have one question (hope it’s not silly 🙂 you specify in the cake batter to use unsalted butter, but in the frosting you do not specify whether to use salted or unsalted. Which should I use?
Thanks so much-I’m excited to try this recipe!
Robin
Not a silly question at all! I should definitely specify. I pretty much always use unsalted!
Thank you so much!
Am ging to make this one and then put some straberries on top to make it for Valentines, it sounds sooo good! Thanks
I just made your cake today and I’ve got to say it was very straight forward, turned out perfect and it was delicious!! Gotta say too that the frosting is one of THE best I’ve ever tasted!!
Thank you so much for providing this recipe
Nicky from the UK
So glad you enjoyed it! I love the subtle sweetness and lightness of this frosting. 🙂
I made this today for a coworkers birthday. One question…..how do you get the cookie crumbs to stick to the side? More was on the parchment paper than the cake!
It was a messy endeavor, that’s for sure! I started from the bottom and would take a cupped handful of crumbs and press it into the side. I worked my way around and up the cake and then went back a few times!
Great, thanks! I will do that next time. My coworkers enjoyed it today as much as I did. Thanks for the tips and for sharing an awesome recipe. I will be making chocolate cupcakes with this recipe too!
So glad you liked it! Thanks for sharing how it worked for you!
Can you make the cake a day ahead of when u want to eat it? Should I freeze it?
I think that would be fine but I would probably wait to add the cookies, as they can get soggy. And you wouldn’t need to freeze. Maybe put it in the fridge if you’re worried. Just make sure to take out of the fridge for an hour or so before you eat it.
The frosting is so light and creamy! Definately a frosting recipe to keep on hand! I found that I only had to bake the cake for around 20 minutes and it was done, thank goodness I checked on it early!
I am a little confused by the frosting ingredient: Scant 1/2 cup flour. Is this just regular all-purpose flour or something special?
Regular all-purpose! (And sorry for the delay in my reply!)
How tall is this oreo cake?
I followed this recipe step by step and the cakes turned out TERRIBLE. They didn’t rise much at all and it looks like it boiled over on the side of the cake pan. On top of that, the frosting tastes like straight sugar… it’s disgusting. I’m glad I attempted this the night before so that I will have time to make something else for my son’s birthday. This recipe was a total bust.
Sorry it didn’t work for you. I’ve made this several times and we love it every time. Better luck next time.
This is my new go to chocolate cake recipe! Yum! We could not stop eating it 🙂 I mixed finely crushed oreos into the frosting since I was covering the cake in fondant.
How do you get the cookie crumbs around the outside of the cake
how many with this recipe feed
I have a question. On the frosting part you specify granulated sugar but you simply put sugar for the cake part. Is it also granulated or powdered? Thanks!
Granulated. Thanks for catching that.
Hey!
This cake looks amazing but wondering if the picture is photoshopped?
Tastes great but the icing is yellow and not white, any idea what the reason could be?
Cheers!
Interesting! I often use photoshop to improve photos, but this icing was most definitely white and not yellow. Were you using butter or margarine? Margarine sometimes contains yellow food coloring, which I suppose could change the color of the final product. Either way, sorry your icing didn’t turn out the way you wanted it! Yellow icing is a bummer.
I made this cake this past weekend for a friend. Unfortunately I did not get to try any but all I heard wer raving reviews about how delicious it was and how amazing the frosting is. I’ve used this frosting recipe several times now and it’s just incredible.
Thanks for sharing.
My son’s 17th birthday is this month. He just informed me that he would like an Oreo cake (with chocolate cake) for his birthday. THIS is the cake I am making him, looks absolutely delicious. Thank you for sharing.
Would regular Hershey’s cocoa be an acceptable substitute to Special Dark?
Quick question:
If I made the cake and frosting a day in advance, would it be okay to skip the ice bath step and just put the frosting in the fridge over night?
Thank you!
I am doing it right now and I am so nervous about the frosting …. !
: )
let you know how it goes , Kind Regards from This side of the world !
Thank you for sharing your recipe !
First time cooking one of your recipes and I’ll definitely be looking around for more inspiration. Thanks for sharing.