The theme of our posts in this new year is “easy”, and we’re going to continue showing you some simple and delicious recipes – but today, we’re focusing on something sweet. Cookie cakes combine two desserts that people love, cookies and cakes, and you can find all kinds of versions of them. Some are coated with icing, while others have edible pictures printed on them that turn your tongue black when you eat the photo. Some are baked in deep dish pizza pans with a scoop of ice cream slapped on top. This version, which we based on a recipe in the New York Times, eschews all those things in favor of just chocolate, caramel, and almonds on top, making for a lightly sweet cookie cake that takes only a little bit of effort to bake. So if you’re craving a quick dessert for a crowd, here’s how we made this giant cookie.
You’ll need:
- Flour
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- A stick of butter
- Sugar
- Almond butter
- An egg
- A 4-ounce bar of semi-sweet chocolate
- Slivered almonds
- Caramel
To make your cookie cake’s dough, warm your butter in the microwave for 10 seconds and then place it in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Pour in 3/4 cup of sugar and a large pinch of salt and beat on a medium-low speed for 2 minutes. Add in 3 tablespoons of almond butter (make sure you’ve stirred it in its container if it’s started to separate) and mix for another 2 minutes. In a different bowl whisk together 1 1/3 cups of flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda, then add 1/3 of this bowl to the stand mixer and beat on a low speed just until everything is blended together. Add in the egg and beat until it mixes in, then add in the rest of the flour mixture until you have an even dough. Now line a baking sheet with parchment paper and take out the ring of a 9-inch springform pan (you won’t need the bottom part). Turn the ring upside down on the baking sheet and place your dough inside.
Use your fingers to spread the dough out inside the ring, then smooth it out into an even surface with a spatula.
Chop up your chocolate and spread it over the top, then measure out 1/3 cup of almonds and sprinkle those over the surface as well.
Bake the cookie cake at 350°F for 20 to 25 minutes – you’ll know it’s done when you can stick a toothpick into the middle and it comes out clean. When you take it out of the oven, take the pan off right away and let the cookie cake fully cool. Drizzle caramel on top, let it dry and firm up, and then you can cut your cookie cake into wedges to eat!
Seriously easy – you don’t even have to do much stirring by hand because your stand mixer does most of that for you. After that it’s only a matter of spreading out the dough in the pan, chopping some chocolate, and then adding that plus the almonds and caramel to the top. Really, the only difficult part of this whole process was that we had to transport the cookie cake in a Papa John’s pizza box. What you get in the end is a very elegant looking cookie cake that’s not too sugary and gets its flavor from the toppings. We shared this with some family members and they loved it, and we think you will too.