The Oreo Cookie Weakness

The Oreo Cookie Weakness is a real thing.

You either have it or you don't.

And I have it.

Bad.

The other day, I found Oreo instant pudding at the store. So I bought it, without any specific plan for it.

The office prego suggested that it would make a really good cake filling.

Which got the wheels turning.

So, my next Trader Joe's run, I grabbed a few things to go with it...

Have you tried Trader Joe's Vanilla Cake mix?
It is the sweetest, to die for cake ever.
It is not white cake. Or yellow cake.
But Vanilla cake.

YUM.

It is so pretty, it even has little flecks of vanilla bean throughout.

So I made the cake as the instructions on the box...with a twist.
After it was all mixed up, I crushed about 9 Oreos (or in this case Joe-Joes) in a ziplock, and tossed them into the batter.

And then poured the batter into two 8 inch pans. The box didn't have directions for that size, so I baked for about 25 minutes, plus a few until the cakes were nice and golden.

AND - another twist.

I added a few whole Oreos/Joe-Joes into the cake itself.

Overkill?

Maybe.

The cakes REALLY wanted to stay in their pans - so assembly was a bit of a challenge - but I pieced it together as best I could - and layered the cakes with the pudding.

I used Trader Joe's White Frosting Mix - which I suspect is basically just glorified powdered sugar - and crushed up a few more Oreos/Joe-Joes (maybe 6-8?) and threw them in the frosting. 

Iced the cake.

And decorated with even more...wait for it.

Oreos/Joe-Joes. 

Seriously. If it wasn't overkill before. It is now.

I brought it to work the next day, for Prego's farewell.  It may have given me a cavity just looking at it. (Good thing my sister is a hygienist, she can work on that for me). 

So it's not the prettiest cake I have ever made.

And it wasn't MY personal favorite.

But it did seem to get some good reviews from the coworkers. And prego's hubby. 

So, I call it a success.

And tomorrow? Prego's Twins arrive! I can't wait to hear the report. 

Double the cookie!

Double the fun!

Welcome to the world little ones!

The Best Food Holiday

Well, most people would say that Thanksgiving makes the best food holiday. And yes, it is up there, however, the Superbowl might take the cake. Literally.

Last year, around Superbowl season, I began obsessing over the Williams-Sonoma Sandwich Cookie Pans - aka Oreo Cookie Cake. After trying to convince everyone I know to buy them for me, and getting no takers, I caved and just bought them myself.

Is it not adorable? It isn't exactly cheap. However, when you buy the pans, you get the cake and frosting mix for $10 more (normally $20 - YIKES!). So I decided to debut the cake pans for the Hope San Mateo 2010 Superbowl Party. With the help of Margaret, we diligently followed each direction to a T. Including the buttering and dusting of the pans with cocoa powder. We timed the cooling before flipping to the minute. We did everything the directions told us to. Unfortunately, the cake still stuck a bit to the pans. And even worse, after we assembled it, and left it in the fridge to chill, when I woke up Sunday morning, I discovered this:

Yes, an Oreo Cookie Cake Casualty. I wanted to cry.  After a few MacGuyver like moves, I made the broken top layer into the bottom layer, and no one was the wiser.

A few weeks later I baked the cake again, this time from scratch, as per the recipe on the box (which, by the way is delicious, but not as insanely amazing as the box mix). I carefully buttered each crevice of the detailed pans, dusted with cocoa and let cool appropriately. Unfortunately the cake stuck to the pans again, and came out in several pieces. I puzzled them together, and served the cake to my family, who didn't seem to mind.

Well the Superbowl has come again, and I was ready for a Oreo Cookie Cake Rematch. This time I was going to go with my instincts - the recipe calls for a Pioneer Woman amount of butter, these are non-stick pans, and with a little cooking spray the cakes should have no problem coming right out. I sprayed those suckers down. In the scalloped edges, around the COOKIE imprint, in each decorative design.

Good news folks, the Oreo Cookie Cake Pans were no match for my master Canola Oil Spraying Skills, they slipped out like a charm, and in one piece. I could not be happier with the results.

Hopefully, the people of Hope San Mateo were as well.