Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

A chocolate chip cookie cake can be made for all sorts of occasions. They are great for birthdays, graduations, showers, etc. The best thing about a chocolate chip cookie cake is that it is a unique idea that still tastes great. If you're tired of regular cake or you just love cookies, this is a great alternative.

A chocolate chip cookie cake is essentially a giant cookie. In fact, many people refer to it as a giant cookie. However, it can be made more like a cake than just a giant cookie with a few tweaks.

When baking a giant cookie, you can't follow everything exactly as you would with regular cookies. The dough is just the same as this chocolate chip cookie recipe. Follow the recipe for the regular chocolate chip cookie dough and thoroughly refrigerate it. If the dough is too soft, it will run out all over and probably be bigger, thinner, and crunchier than you want.

With ordinary drop cookies, you keep then in a ball and space them out on a sheet. If you did this with a giant cookie, the edges would be hard and possibly burnt, and the center would be doughy and un-cooked. Instead, you must form the cookie to begin with.

A 12 inch round cake pan will work best. If you don't have one, form one with foil pulling up an edge all the way around, then place the foil pan on a cookie sheet. Line the pan with parchment paper or lightly grease it. Press the dough in the pan leaving about 2 inches of space between the dough and the edge of the pan. The cookie will continue to spread out.

You can also put the dough in a rectangular or square pan if you want, but it won't be a round cake. Some people prefer the rectangular shape. These can be cut into bars as well.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. The oven temperature needs to be lower to ensure the cookie bakes evenly. You can decorate the chocolate chip cookie cake before by pressing in M&Ms or other nuts and candies into the top. Bake in the oven for about 30 to 35 minutes until the cookie is golden brown around the edges and looks set and cooked in the middle. No need for the toothpick test because it's not really a cake.

After the chocolate chip cookie cake is baked, you can decorate it however you please. You can write directly on it with icing or add flowers and decorations. You can frost it, too. To make an extra special cake, do layers. Put a thin layer of extra thick buttercream frosting in between 2 or more layers of cookie. For best results, keep the cookie cool so that the frosting doesn't squeeze out when you cut it.

If you're putting frosting in between layers or frosting the top, don't add too much. Cookies are much richer than cake and adding too much frosting could end up creating a dessert with way too much sugar and density.