Chelsea's Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

Can we pretend it's Tuesday? Don't get me wrong: I'm excited to be one day closer to a long weekend with John and his family, but I really wanted to take part in Delicious Dish Tuesday with my girl Mary! She and a couple other lovely ladies host a linkup where bloggers share their favorite recipes, and this dessert has quickly made it to the top of my must-make list!

My mom's birthday was Monday night, and while she insisted she didn't want any cake (how am I her daughter?!), I knew I had to make something. Morgan, my brother's girlfriend, suggested I make the same cookie cake I made for her birthday a while back, since it was such a hit! I originally used this recipe from Life, Love and Sugar, but I've made a couple itty-bitty tweaks since then! It's a super easy, yet super delicious, dessert to whip up, and it made it even easier tag-teaming it with Morgan! From the time we got all the ingredients out to the time my mom blew out her candles, it must have been less than an hour. That's the kind of cake I like! 

Here's Morgan with her birthday cake- it was my first time using this recipe!
Ingredients
Cookie Cake 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (Or, if you like instant gratification and don't want to wait for the butter to thaw, just beat it for a little longer than usual! Still tasted great!) 3/4 cup dark brown sugar 1/4 cup sugar1 egg 3ish tsp vanilla extract (Don't be afraid of vanilla- I always add a little more than most recipes call for! I know you're supposed to be exact with baking, but I think this is one of the few ingredients you can play around with for flavor. Also, don't skimp: it needs to be the real deal and not some imitation stuff for it to taste out of this world.) 2 cups all purpose flour2 tsp cornstarch 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1 1/2ish cups milk chocolate chips (AKA we just used the whole bag- minus the few we ate here and there! ;) You could use semi-sweet or even dark, but milk chocolate is our family's chip of choice.) 

Vanilla Buttercream
1/2 cup butter1/2 cup shortening
4 cups powdered sugar (We just used one smaller bag from Publix, which was about 1/4 cup short, but with this kind of frosting, you can't mess up!)
1-2 tsp vanilla extract (Again, it's all preference, but a little extra splash never hurt anyone!)2-3 tbsp water

Instructions
Cookie Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Confession: when I remember to preheat the oven before I start baking, I feel like my life is together. 
2. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.
3. Mix in egg and vanilla extract.
4. With the mixer on low speed, add flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt.
5. Stir in chocolate chips. Dough will be thick.
6. Chill for at least 30 minutes or overnight.  When I made this for Morgan, I chilled it, but we were in a rush (AKA super ready to eat a slice of heaven) so we skipped this and it tasted just as divine!
7. Place parchment paper into the bottom of your cake pan to help the cookie not stick. HA, no. Totally unnecessary, unless you're the fancy kind of person who uses parchment paper regularly, in which case, go for it! However, I've found a bit of Pam Spray works just find. 
8. Spread the dough out into the cake pan. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the edges are slightly golden.
9. Remove from oven and allow to cool mostly in the cake pan, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely. Why let it cool completely on a cooling rack when I could just eat it while it's still a little warm and gooey? Yes, it should be cool enough to frost, but a cooling rack isn't really necessary for this to taste incredible. Now, if you want to make it look a little more presentable and pretty and put it on a cute tray, I totally understand. 

10. Frost cake. This dessert is rich, so piping frosting along the edges is really all it needs. Any more than that and you may give yourself a tummy ache! My "frosting gun" John gave me from Wilton is absolutely perfect for this task! 

Vanilla Buttercream *Note: This makes plenty of extra frosting. We only used a 1/4ish of it.*
1. Beat the shortening and butter until smooth.
2. Slowly add 3 cups of powdered sugar. Mix until combined.
3. Mix in the vanilla extract and 1 tbsp water.
4. Add the rest of the powdered sugar and mix until smooth. Add more water to get the right consistency. Like I said, this is sort of an exercise of trial-and-error. You make like your frosting a little thicker, so you'll only use a little water. We used a little more because it was a little easier to mix that way, but do whatever works for you!

5. Add your favorite food coloring to the frosting and mix away! 

The birthday girl with the bakers!

Torturing our poor dog, Bess, with the sight of cake she can't eat...

Hope y'all didn't mind my little annotations too much! I just felt the need to share how easy this cake is to create! Sometimes totally homemade baking intimidates people, and this cake is so good, people will think you worked much harder than you did! I plan on participating in more Dashing Dish linkups this summer, and I think you'll find all of my favorite recipes to be no-fuss yet fabulous. I'm so excited to start sharing some of my favorite creations with y'all, and I'm just as excited to check out some tried and true recipes from other bloggers! Here's to a new linkup!