Cookies and Cream Cake

My favorite flavor of ice cream, hands down, is cookies and cream. Something about the creamy vanilla combined with the chocolatey cookies makes both my mouth and tummy very happy. So I tried to create a cake that emulated these flavors. After quite a bit of trial and error, I came up with a recipe that I feel truly resembles the flavors of cookies and cream ice cream. Yellow cake batter is combined with chocolate sandwich cookies and baked, and then each cake layer is topped with a fluffy cookies and cream frosting and lots of chopped chocolate sandwich cookies. Sinfully delicious!

Ingredients:

1 2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup of softened butter
2/3 cup sour cream
2 tbsp. vegetable or canola oil
2/3 cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 ¼ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
3 eggs, separated
1 tbsp. vanilla extract

3 sticks unsalted butter, softened
5 cups of powdered sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
¼ cup heavy cream

1 package chocolate sandwich cookies

Directions:

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour two round cake pans. Remove half of the cookies from the package and chop them with a knife. Remove the other half of the cookies and crush them (a few pulses in the food processor till they resemble crumbs or crush them by hand). Set each group of cookies aside.

Step 2: In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl and then combine with the butter and sugar. Add the sour cream, oil, milk, vanilla, and egg yolks (reserve the egg whites in a separate bowl). Beat for 2 minutes on medium-high speed.

Step 4: Clean the beaters to the mixer and beat the egg whites on high speed for about 15 seconds. Add to the rest of the batter and with a rubber spatula or a spoon fold in the egg whites until it is uniformly incorporated into the batter.

Step 5: Take about half of the crushed cookies and half of the chopped cookies and stir them into the batter. Divide the batter among the two pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes, then remove the cakes from the pans to cool completely.

Step 6: In a large bowl, beat the butter with an electric mixer at medium speed for about 20 seconds, then gradually beat in the powdered sugar. Add the heavy cream and vanilla extract and beat at high speed for about two minutes. Stir in the rest of the crushed cookies.

Step 7: Assemble the cake: Place one of the cake layers on a cake platter. Top the cake with some of the frosting and sprinkle with some of the chopped cookies. Place the other cake layer on top, then spread the rest of the frosting over the whole cake, being sure to cover both the top and the sides. Sprinkle the remaining chopped cookies on top.

And there you have it!

Make the cake batter…