Oreo Cookie Cake

I have this thing about junk food—chips, salty snacks, certain processed foods, and cookies. I love it too much, so I keep it out of the house. That’s why at any party, I’ll pass up the quinoa salad and go straight to the seven-layer dip with the Fritos. After all, the quinoa salad is something that I would make at home, but the Fritos are verboten. This is all to explain how excited I was to have an excuse to buy Oreos for Maida’s Oreo Cookie Cake. I love Oreos too much. So this cake would have to be good, right?



I chose this recipe for this weekend for a reason: I knew I could give most of it away. It was Habitat Faith Build Weekend--5 houses in 1 weekend. Now I can't swing a hammer--my construction gift is picking up trash--but I can provide baked goods. So as soon as this yummy cake was remotely ready, I sliced it up, wrapped each slice individually, and packed them in a shoebox. I sent the box with a man driving to the work site encouraging him to deliver it to the "Methodist houses." Who knows if it ever got there--or if they liked the cake. All I know is that we sure did!
I actually used the camera this time, so we'll just do a photo essay.
Here's the batter--look at all those yummy Oreos going in there! It's a pretty sturdy sour cream cake batter. Definitely worth licking the bowl.


Product placement! Nabisco--I would like my check please :-). But you must agree that it came out nicely.
Amazingly enough, the cake unmolded from my temperamental Bundt pan without a fight.


Mmmm...ganache. I used 72% chocolate, so it wasn't very sweet at all. It was a nice contrast.

Buttery cake and ganache and softened Oreos. Works for me! The cake sliced beautifully. This reminds me of the sour cream coffee cake I sometimes make for Saturday breakfast. Take out the Oreos (and ganache) and add streusel, and this becomes breakfast.

This is what I came home to on Sunday. Probably a good thing.

Here's the recipe I made:

Oreo Cookie Cake

14-15 Oreo cookies (that's about 1 row: 2 more rows for you!)
2 sticks (8 oz. butter), room temperature
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 t. vanilla
1/4 t. almond extract
1-1/2 c. (10.5 oz) sugar (I actually used about 10 oz.)
3 large eggs
2-3/4 c. (11 oz.) sifted flour (I used about 4 oz. white whole wheat)
1 c. (8 oz.) sour cream

Heat the oven to 350 and spray your Bundt pan really well. Chop the Oreos into quarters. Restrain yourself from snacking. Cream the butter, baking soda, salt, vanilla, and almond extract until it's nice and soft, then add the sugar gradually. Beat for another 2-3 minutes. Then add the eggs one at a time, beating until well incorporated after each. Then on low speed add the flour in three additions alternating with the sour cream in two additions.( I find that if you give the flour a bit of a fold in with the rubber spatula before you turn the mixer on, it doesn't fling the flour quite so much.) Wait, don't put the Oreos in yet! Put about 1/3 of the batter in the pan. Then add the Oreos to the batter and fold them in by hand. Spoon this batter on top of the plain batter. Maida suggests making a trench in the batter to keep it even. I did that, and it did seem even, so knock yourself out. Bake the cake for an hour, or until the toothpick comes out clean and the cake feels springy. Then let it cool for 15 minutes before you unmold it. Let it come to room temperature.
When the cake is just about cool, make the ganache:

6 oz. semisweet/bittersweet chocolate (since there's no added sugar in the ganache, make sure it's chocolate that's at a good sweetness level for you)
1/2 stick (2 oz.) butter
about 1 T. cream

Put all that in the microwave and cook on high for 30 seconds. Stir it and put it back in for about 15 seconds. It should be all nice and smooth and glossy.
Pour it over the cake so that it looks kind of casual and drippy. It's a lot of glaze and should cover the cake pretty thickly and completely.

Let the cake stand until the glaze sets and "transfer to a cake plate." If it makes it that long.