This week marks my baby’s 25th birthday. A quarter of a century! How is that possible? I think that officially makes me old, but I’m good with that. I’ve earned my wrinkles. I view them as badges of wisdom.
For his birthday cake, I knew that chocolate of some sort must be incorporated. Last year I went full-on chocolate with the ultimate gluten-free chocolate cake. I think his favourite was the smarties rainbow cake I made a few years ago. Ever since I saw the cookies and cream cake on preppy kitchen, I have wanted to recreate it. You need to check out his blog. I have picked up so many baking tips from him. Do you know about cake strips? They’re wrapped around the cake pan and they help prevent domed and cracked tops and over-cooked edges. I used them for these cakes and I had the most level cakes ever. No trimming necessary.
My son follows a mostly gluten-free diet so I created a GF version. The original cake used chopped Oreos in the batter. I found GF ones at Trader Joes, but there are several other brands of GF chocolate sandwich cookies. I made a Swiss meringue buttercream. It is a bit more work than an American buttercream, but I think the light and silky texture is worth it.
A few weeks ago, my daughter sent me a BBM from her dorm room at College, asking me to please buy a bag of Oreo cookies for when she came home for the long holiday weekend. Huh??? Usually she asks me to bake some decadent cookie, so the store-bought request was odd. When I asked her why she wanted Oreos she said her roommate had seen something unbelievable, using Oreos, on a food blog and wanted my daughter to bake it for her when she went home.
The next day, while surfing food blogs, I came across this and this and this and this, well, you get the idea. Apparently this is the new food blogging darling. Everyone’s doing it! I sent the links to my daughter and asked her if this was what she planned to make. Her reply was an effusive “YESSSS!!” She went on and on about how amazing these looked and yada yada yada.
My first reaction was, “This, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with America (and Canada too) these days. Supersizing everything. As if a double stuffed Oreo isn’t gluttony enough, now we’re shoving an Oreo inside a huge ball of chocolate chip cookie dough and baking it. No wonder our kids are obese and diabetes and heart disease are killing us.” Then I got off my high horse, and of course, went out and bought a bag of Oreos – not the double stuffed ones though, I have my limits.
I have to admit, the baker in me was very curious to see how this was actually done and what exactly would happen when you stuff SUGAR, ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE {VITAMIN B1}, RIBOFLAVIN {VITAMIN B2}, FOLIC ACID), HIGH OLEIC CANOLA OIL AND/OR PALM OIL AND/OR CANOLA OIL, AND/OR SOYBEAN OIL, COCOA (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI), HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORNSTARCH, LEAVENING (BAKING SODA AND/OR CALCIUM PHOSPHATE), SALT, SOY LECITHIN (EMULSIFIER), VANILLIN – AN ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, CHOCOLATE. CONTAINS: WHEAT, and SOY inside chocolate chip cookie dough and bake it.
For this post, I had two guest bakers, my daughter and her best friend, who is may as well be my second daughter, as she spends a lot of time at our house. I was just documenting this experiment with the camera. The pictures are less than my usual stellar quality as the girls decided to begin baking at 9:00 pm, and I was lacking daylight, which I like to shoot with.
We made a little video to demonstrate how to form these cookies. It’s not rocket science, but we were on a bit of a sugar high and having a little fun, so we made a video.
We had a bit of a debate on whether or not to flatten out the Oreo balls after they were formed. We took a vote and flattening won by a 2:1 margin.
We waited a few minutes and then we cut one open. The chocolate chips were warm and gooey and the Oreo filling had melted slightly. I have to say, I didn’t like them very much. Part of the reason was that I do not like warm chocolate chip cookies. I like them to be totally cooled so the chocolate is not at all melted anymore. I like them even better frozen. I know, I am strange. The girls declared them, not bad and continued to nibble away at them. I went to bed, secretly glad I didn’t love them because I was not really tempted to eat anymore.
When I got up in the morning, I cut another one open, so I could photograph them in daylight. They had totally cooled by this point and the cookies lost their chewiness. To be fair, I think we overbaked them. The recipe said to bake 9-13 minutes but we went longer, about 16 minutes. They were more crunchy now. I took a bunch of shots and then decided to taste them again. Not bad! Damn!!! I quickly wrapped the remainder up and made my daughter pack them in her bag to take back to school that afternoon. I’m looking forward to seeing what Jenny of the Picky Palate comes up with next.
This week marks my baby’s 25th birthday. A quarter of a century! How is that possible? I think that officially makes me old, but I’m good with that. I’ve earned my wrinkles. I view them as badges of wisdom.
Ever since I saw the cookies and cream cake on preppy kitchen, I have wanted to recreate it. You need to check out his blog. I have picked up so many baking tips from him. Do you know about cake strips? They’re wrapped around the cake pan and they help prevent domed and cracked tops and over-cooked edges. I used them for these cakes and I had the most level cakes ever. No trimming necessary.
