Topped with sprinkles and a rich chocolate frosting, my chocolate chip cookie cake makes a great birthday cake substitute. It’s quick and easy to make but so stunning and celebratory with its chocolate frosting and colorful sprinkles! Recipe includes a how-to video!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
Unlike most of my cake recipes, this isn’t a soft and fluffy slice of heaven. Instead, my cookie cake is quite literally a big, thick, soft-baked chocolate chip cookie, complete with chocolate buttercream. The center is chewy, buttery, and studded with chocolate chips. It’s all the best things we love about cookies, but impressive enough to be the main attraction at a party!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Perfect for people who don’t enjoy classic cakes. And with plenty of sprinkles, no one will miss the traditional birthday cake!
- No chilling, scooping, or rolling! Simply make the dough and spread it into your pan. It’s just as easy as my chocolate chip cooke bars!
- Each slice has a soft, chewy, center with a slightly crisped edge. Everyone gets the best parts!
Ingredient Overview
This recipe isn’t too different from your average chocolate chip cookie recipe, so the ingredients are pretty similar.
- Egg + egg yolk. Instead of two whole eggs, I use one egg and and one egg yolk. Discarding that extra egg white means our cookie cake won’t be cakey, but will instead be perfectly tender and chewy. If you don’t want to toss your egg white, save it to make some candied walnuts.
- Cornstarch. This encourages a thick, soft, and tender chocolate chip cookie cake. Cornstarch is one of my favorite “secret” ingredients in cookies (you’ve probably seen it before in my “worst” chocolate chip cookies and Neapolitan cookies), a little bit helps make for a perfectly soft result.
- Cocoa powder. This ingredient is for the frosting rather than the cake layer itself. I typically stick with natural cocoa powder. Dutch process will work too, but the color will be darker and the flavor will be deeper.
- Chocolate chips. I always prefer semisweet chips (they lend a nice balance to things) but if you like milk chocolate, dark chocolate, or even white chocolate, any of these will work!
- Sprinkles. Have fun with these! Feel free to use holiday sprinkles (red, white, and blue would be cute for July 4th!) or your own blend. I stir them into the batter and save a few to sprinkle on top of the frosting, too.
How to Make a Cookie Cake
- Cream the butter and sugars until combined and creamy.
- Stir in the eggs and vanilla, then set this aside.
- Whisk the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, then gradually stir them into the wet ingredients. Adding the dry ingredients all at once can make combining the dough difficult, so it’s important to do this gradually!
- Fold in your chocolate chips and sprinkles. I like to reserve a few chocolate chips for pressing into the top of the cake after I’ve spread it into the pan–it just looks prettier this way!
- Press and smooth the cookie dough into your pan. I use the back of a spoon to do this. The dough will be stiff! If you really want to get a pretty top, you can press a piece of wax paper against the surface of the dough and use your hands to press/smooth the dough into the pan.
- Bake until the edges are starting to turn golden brown and let cool completely before frosting.
Make the Frosting & Decorate
- Beat the butter until smooth, then gradually stir in the sugar until combined.
- Add the cocoa powder and vanilla and stir until incorporated. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl to make sure there are no dry pockets hiding.
- Add milk as needed until you reach your desired consistency.
- Pipe the frosting around the top of your cake, top with sprinkles, and enjoy!
SAM’S TIP: As hard as it is to wait, you must let the cake cool completely before adding your frosting. If it’s still warm, the frosting will just melt.
FAQs
The cookie cake itself is fine to sit at room temperature (keep it in an airtight container!) and I think it’s best served at room temperature, but whether or not to refrigerate ultimately depends on the frosting you use. With the frosting I use here, this cake can sit out at room temperature for a few days. If your frosting does require refrigeration, know that the cookie cake will be more dense and crumbly when served from the fridge and make sure to use an airtight container to store it.
Yes! A deep 10″ cake pan, 9″ springform, 10″ cast iron skillet, or tart pan will work. Just know that if you use a smaller pan your bake time will be a bit longer and your chocolate chip cookie cake will be thicker and softer. Inversely, if you use a larger pan, then you will have a shorter bake time and a thinner cake. If you use a cast iron pan (a great choice for making this recipe’s cousin: the pizookie), the cake will likely take less time to bake.
Are you a cookie person or a cake person? At this point, I feel like it’s just getting to be too hard for me to choose.
Enjoy!
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Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
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Servings: 10 slices
Calories: 606kcal
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Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and prepare a 10″ round pan by lining the bottom with parchment paper or by lightly greasing. Set aside.
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Combine softened butter and sugars in a large bowl and use an electric mixer to beat well until light and fluffy.
¾ cup (170 g) unsalted butter, ¾ cup (150 g) light or dark brown sugar, ⅔ cup (135 g) sugar
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Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and stir well.
1 egg + 1 egg yolk, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
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In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt.
2 cups (250 g) all-purpose, 1 ½ teaspoon corn starch, ½ teaspoon baking powder, ¾ teaspoon salt
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Gradually stir dry ingredients into wet until completely combined. Stir in chocolate chips and sprinkles.
1 cup (170 g) semisweet chocolate chips, 2 Tablespoons sprinkles
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Spread batter evenly into prepared pan. Bake on 350F (175C) for 30 minutes or until edges just begin to turn golden brown.
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Prepare chocolate frosting while the cookie cake cools.
Chocolate Frosting
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Beat butter with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy.
½ cup (113 g) 1 stick salted butter, softened to room temperature
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Gradually add sugar until completely combined
1 ½ cups (188 g) powdered sugar
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Stir in cocoa powder and then vanilla extract. Pause to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
¼ cup (25 g) cocoa powder, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
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Add milk (start with just a splash, if consistency is still too stiff add more as needed until you have a smooth creamy consistency) and beat well
1-2 Tablespoons milk
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Pipe icing around the rim of your cooled cookie cake — I used a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 2D tip, but in a pinch you can simply transfer your frosting to a ziploc bag, snip off a small corner, and pipe that way.
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Slice and enjoy!
Notes
Pan
A 9″ springform pan may be used instead, cake will need to bake approximately 35 minutes.
Storing
Store covered at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
Serving: 1slice | Calories: 606kcal | Carbohydrates: 80g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 31g | Saturated Fat: 19g | Cholesterol: 79mg | Sodium: 392mg | Potassium: 214mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 56g | Vitamin A: 742IU | Calcium: 49mg | Iron: 3mg
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
This recipe was originally published September of 2017. I’ve updated the post with new photos and a new video and added more helpful tips to the post, but the recipe remains the same!
More Birthday Treats (that aren’t cake!)