How to make a cookie cake!

February 15, 3:20 PMBoston Cooking ExaminerErik Wunderlich

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Photo courtesy of Erik Wunderlich

The other day I was walking through the grocery store and noticed something that I must have seen but not noticed many many times before. In the bakery section, there were several styles of Valentines day cookies, in the 12" variety. These cookies looked to be decorated with a minimum of talent and a maximum of icing, and also were extremely expensive at 10$ per. As I stood there maybe ten other people walked by and put it into their baskets. I realized that the store just had made 100$ on something that probably cost a total of 10$ worth of ingredients to make. So I purchased one just to make sure that there was not something really special about these cookies, and took it home. It was ok but not anything you can not make yourself. So I offer to you the giant cookie with frosting method, just in time for the day after Valentines (sorry, some of us have work on the day).

Method 1:

One tube chocolate cookie mix (Nestle, or similar)

Frosting/Icing (Duncan Hines or your pick, but pink seems to be de rigeur for valentines day)

Preheated oven 350*

sheet tray/cookie sheet/jelly roll pan (or similar)

pan spray

rolling pin

Silpat

or parchment paper

Plastic bag for the frosting

Directions:

Roll out the entire roll of cookie dough to make a circle 12" in diameter or slightly more.

Lay cookie on lined sprayed (if not using silpat) sheet pan.

Bake for 15 minutes or until done (it is done when a the center does not jiggle when the pan is shaken).

Remove from oven, gently transfer to a rack to cool.

Once cool, put all of the icing into the bag, cut off on small corner to decorate and lay that icing down to your hearts content.

Present to your sweetie and enjoy.

Method 2:

(adapted from the Joy of Cooking)

You will need:

1 cup + 2 tbl flour

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

8 tbl (4 oz, 1 stick) unsalted butter, room temp, cut into small pieces

½ cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

two large pinches salt

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract or pure bourbon vanilla (I prefer the latter)

1 cup chocolate chips or 3/4 cup chocolate chunks

Preheated oven 350*

sheet tray/cookie sheet/jelly roll pan (or similar)

pan spray

rolling pin

Silpat

or parchment paper

Plastic bag for the frosting

one mixer (kitchenaid or similar)

Directions:

Mix the flour, baking soda and powder together in the mixer on low speed (if you do it on high, you will end up wearing the cookie instead of eating it).

Add to this the butter, white and brown sugar and mix on medium speed until very well incorporated (no visible chunks of butter).

Add the egg, salt and vanilla extract, and mix until very smooth and similar to batter.

Add the chocolate chips and or chunks.

Place in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to cool and allow to come together (this makes it much easier to roll into a nice circle).

Once cool, roll into a nice circle ect (see above).

Once this is all done, the savings is about 4$ for method #1 and 7$ for method #2 (even more savings if you make your own icing). Try this and see how easy it is to make something wonderful out of ingredients...

Cheers,

Erik