Cookie Dough Stuffed Pound Cake

Does anyone else celebrate half birthdays? Because when Ellie was going around telling everyone it was her half birthday the other day, the majority of the people she told looked at me like I was a little bit crazy.

Is it just us moms that will look for any excuse to bake something?

I’ve been wanting to try something with browned butter and one of the most logical (to me) choices seems to be chocolate chip cookies. After all, they are butter based anyway and it just makes sense that the slightly nutty flavor of browned butter would compliment the brown sugary sweetness of a chocolate chip cookie. So, while the kids were eating breakfast, I melted a stick of butter in a small sauce pan, whisking it constantly until it darkened in color and started smelling really good. Then I poured it into a ramekin and stuck it back into the fridge and went about my morning.

Later that day, I took the browned butter back out of the fridge with every intention of making cookies, but then I had to go and complicate things.

I made the cookie dough as I would usually, but I substituted Ener G Egg Replacer Powder for the egg, which is what I do when I intend to eat the dough raw. Then I rolled the dough into teeny tiny teaspoon sized balls, ate a whole bunch of them, and froze the rest. While they were freezing, I made a chocolate pound cake. No big deal. I used this recipe from Baker’s Royale. When the cake was completely cool, and the cookie dough was frozen, I sliced the chocolate cake into slices and used a small square cookie cutter to cut squares from each slice. Then I used a really small square to cut really small squares from the center of the small squares and I stuffed a ball of cookie dough into each really small square. Then I froze the whole mess over night.

The next morning, I made ANOTHER pound cake- this time using the vanilla cake version, also from Bakers Royale. I chose these recipes because they are basically the same, therefore I knew the consistencies would work together. (Also, I halved both recipes since I only needed one cakes worth.)

After mixing the dough, I poured half into my prepared pan, then tightly packed the cookie dough stuffed squares in a row down the center (not pictured are the extra balls of dough that I placed randomly along the sides). Then I poured the rest of the batter on top and baked it all.

Then I told my daughter that I baked her a half birthday cake.

After a small argument about whether or not presents are appropriate for a half birthday (they are not), we sliced up that cake.

And we ate it.

It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. Especially the next day when the flavors had a chance to sit and blend a little. I wouldn’t skip the step of browning the butter, the cake is so rich that it helps to prevent the flavor of the cookie dough from becoming lost in the rest of the cake. Also, don’t skip the freezing steps. That prevents the cookie dough from baking completely and keeps the chocolate cake from drying out.

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (Adapted from The New Basics Cookbook)

• 1 stick of butter , melted, browned, and rechilled, then softened
• 1/2 stick of butter softened
• 6 Tbsp light brown sugar
• 6 Tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp Ener G Egg egg replacer powder dissolved in 2 Tbsp water
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup plus 2 tbsp flour
• 1/2-3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

(The original recipe calls for baking soda which I used when I made this, but I would have left it out if I had known from the beginning that I wasn’t going to make cookies from the dough.)

1. Cream together the two butters and the two sugars.
2. Add Ener G Egg and vanilla, mix until smooth.
3. Add salt and flour. Mix until incorporated.
4. Mix in chocolate chips.

This evolved into a half-birthday cake when I was going to cut the chocolate cake into hearts but couldn’t get a clean cut and still have room for the cookie dough. It was supposed to be a Valentines cake. Shhhhh. Please don’t tell Ellie.

Speaking of Ellie. She wants to blog. I guess she wants to be like her mommy (or see what the big deal is?) So, occasionally, I am going to let her pick out a recipe from one of her cook books. We’ll make it together. Then she will photograph (with my help) and write about it (all on her own). We may try our first post this weekend. Please be nice. She’s six… and a half.

I’ll be linking this post to Simply Sweets by Honeybee Simply Sweet Saturdays.

A “Cookie Monster” Birthday

So much preparation for a little birthday party! The past week has been a blur of icing, frosting, flour, butter, sugar, and vanilla.

At the time that I picked the theme for his party, Ben was into two things. Cookies and Cookie Monster. So I decided to go with “Cookies and Monsters”.

My sister in law, Wendi, made the invitations. At the time, these were the colors I was going with, but as the party evolved, the colors changed. As it turned out, Wendi made a LOT more than just the invitations.

We had the party at My Little Adventures. It is a local kid’s gym that also offers many classes for kids up to age six. We were so happy with the party itself. They really went above and beyond to make the birthday boy, his sister, and every single guest feel special.

Isn’t the shirt cute? Wendi made that, too. I had actually ordered a shirt from an Etsy store back in January, and at the last minute (meaning last Tuesday) I got a email saying she couldn’t complete the order. Oh well, Wendi saved the day and I LOVED it! Here’s the back:

Now, I’ll bet you’d like to see the treats?

Here’s a close up of the cake:

And here’s an even better shot:

The inside was polka dot, but it was cut up and handed out before I could get a good picture.

Can you see the polka dots? I got the idea from this post that I found via Pinterest. I baked up some blue, green, orange, and yellow cake pops in Wendi’s Baby Cake Cake Pop machine (there’s Wendi, saving the day again!) and baked them into   the cake. I used Sweetapolita’s chocolate cake recipe and got so many compliments on it. It’s definitely my new go to chocolate cake recipe! I topped it off with some cake pop eye balls like this cake, also found via Pinterest.

To make things a little less messy for the two-year-olds, I made some monster cupcakes.

So, I’m not kidding. I said before I have been having computer issues, and my lap top just decided to freeze me out of my photos. So I will have to let the computer rest for a little bit and hope I can get in there later to share the cookies and party favors.