This post is sponsored by DoughCuts who also provided the images and recipe. All views and text are my own.
July 4th is only a few days away. How are you celebrating this very important holiday?
I’ll be cooking and entertaining family over for July 4th. We’ll be grilling and I’ll be baking some sweet goodies as well.
Speaking of baking, I’m excited to share with you about DoughCuts, the hottest new baking trend that offers unique “print-at-home” cookie cake templates. The company helps people create precious family memories through their food. The molds help cut out large cookie shapes with ease and offer accessories to match like silicone baking mats and a cookie dough cutting tool. Cookie cakes are traditionally created as large chocolate chip cookies with a message in icing.
Founder Lisa Moulden is taking this antiquated version and turning it on its head with a new and improved style– a layered cookie topped with gorgeous decorations, with cream tarts, cookie cake or cream biscuits as the final product. This unique alternative offers a solution to the large tools taking up too much storage space in the cupboard (usually 11” plus sized), won’t break the bank and you won’t need a commercial kitchen! Templates are reusable and take up no more room than a piece of cardboard, which can easily be stored with cookbooks.
So today, I’m sharing with you Lisa’s 4th of July Cookie Cake made with 2 large star shaped vanilla cookies, 11 inches tall, layered with a white chocolate cheesecake filling, and topped with small star-shaped cookies with fondant, chocolate strawberries, chocolate pretzels and sprinkles. Enjoy! 🙂
EQUIPMENT
Here’s the equipment you’ll need to make this layered cookie cake:
Electric mixer
Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper
Cookie Sheets or Large Baking Trays
Rolling Pin
Star Shaped Cookie Template – DoughCuts print at home star template is available here
Small Star Cookie Cutters
Round Icing Nozzle (Lisa used 13mm/ 1/2″ but other sizes work just as well)
Icing Bag
Glass or plastic microwave safe bowl for melting chocolate
In addition to the cookie and cheesecake filling recipes you also need these ingredients:
Sprinkles in the 4th July theme
Blue sprinkles or sanding sugar (optional, you could use the 4th July blend instead)
White Fondant
Royal blue and red food colors
Strawberries
Pretzels
STEP 1: MAKE YOUR STAR TEMPLATE
You will need to make a large star cookie template. Lisa used their print-at-home star template to make this 11″ star shaped cookies. You can print their templates yourself on your home printer using your regular paper. This saves time and frustration in not having to hand draw a perfect star shape. After printing and assembling the template, trace it onto parchment paper so you can reuse it on both of the star cutouts and keep the assembled template for future cookie cakes like Lisa did!
STEP 2: MAKE THE VANILLA COOKIES
Print and follow the vanilla cookie recipe instructions on the bottom of this post.
STEP 3: TOPPERS – SMALL STAR COOKIES
Roll out the leftover dough from step 1 and cut out small star shaped cookies using cookie cutters in different sizes. Lisa used 3cm and 4.5cm star shaped cookie cutters. You will have enough leftover dough to create a lot of small star cookies so you can serve the extras along with your cookie cake.
The small stars will take 8-10 minutes to cook in the oven and can be cooled on a cooling rack.
Once the small star cookies are completely cooled you can color some fondant to top your cookies with. Lisa used white fondant and colored 2 small portions of it with royal blue and red food color. After coloring it, roll it out (white, red and blue fondant) and cut it out with the same star cookie cutters used to make the small cookies and attached the fondant to the cookies. Just dab a little tiny bit of water onto the back of the fondant and it sticks it to the cookie. Let this set on a cooling rack before storing in an airtight container if you aren’t going to use them right away.
STEP 4: CHEESECAKE FILLING
A printable version of this recipe is here.
In the printable version Lisa used 250 grams white chocolate however below she used 350 grams and she used some of the melted chocolate on the pretzels and strawberries.
INGREDIENTS:
500 grams cream cheese, softened
¼ cup caster sugar
1 cup thickened cream
350 grams white chocolate – 250 g for the cookie cake and 100 g for toppers
METHOD:
Place cream cheese, sugar and cream into the bowl of electric mixer and whip on low speed until combined. Increase to high speed and whip until the sugar has dissolved completely and mixture is smooth and thick.
Melt chocolate on medium power in microwave, stirring every 30 seconds, until just melted. Take care not to overheat the chocolate or it will seize and have lumps in it.
Jump down to STEP 6 to make the strawberries and pretzels then add the remaining melted white chocolate to the cheesecake mixture.
Pour melted white chocolate into cheesecake mixture and whip until combined.
It is now ready to be piped onto your cookie cakes.
STEP 5: CHOCOLATE STRAWBERRIES
Using the melted chocolate in step 5, dip each strawberry 2/3 the way into the melted chocolate and then dip them again 1/3 of the way into the blue sprinkles or sanding sugar. Set them onto a silicone baking mat or parchment paper to set. Lisa only used about 7 strawberries which were enough to top the cake with. You can always melt more white chocolate and make extra to serve with the cookie cake if you wish.
STEP 6: CHOCOLATE PRETZELS
Again using the melted chocolate in step 5, dip each pretzel into the chocolate and set them onto a silicone baking mat and sprinkle with sprinkles of your choice. Lisa only used 6 or so pretzels which were enough to top the cake with. You can always melt more white chocolate and make extra to serve with the cookie cake.
Back up to STEP 5, the cheesecake filling. The rest of the instructions were:
Pour remaining melted white chocolate into cheesecake mixture and whip until combined.
It is now ready to be piped onto your cookie cakes.
STEP 7: ASSEMBLING THE LARGE COOKIES!
Carefully slide one of your large star cookies onto a serving plate or board (that will fit into your fridge). Fill an icing bag, topped with a 13mm round nozzle with some of the cheesecake filling and carefully pipe it onto the cookie cake, like in this photo.
Place the cookie cake in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes. Cheesecake filling is very soft until it has set in the fridge so a little extra care needs to be taken with it. Chilling it will help to add the second layer without it just squashing it all.
Carefully place the second cookie on top of the first one that you piped and carefully pipe the remaining cheesecake filling on top. Place the cookie cake in the fridge again for 20 minutes.
The cheesecake filling will not be set after 20 minutes, however it will be set enough to decorate if you are careful with it.
STEP 8: TOP YOUR COOKIE CAKE
Get your strawberries, pretzels, cookies and sprinkles ready to go.
Place them carefully on top of the cookie cake and add sprinkles at the end. It is then ready to chill for at least an hour before serving, to allow the cheesecake filling to set. Get ready for the ooohs and aaahs when you serve it!
There are endless ways you can decorate it to suit your style and we’d love to see your version of the 4th July cookie cake!
Happy baking! 🙂
For more delicious recipes using DoughCuts, GO HERE.
PrintVanilla Cookie Recipe For Cookie Cake
This classic vanilla cookie recipe is delicious and makes a great cookie for a cookie cake or cream tart!
Ingredients
NGREDIENTS:
250 grams butter, softened
120 grams caster (superfine) sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
4 ½ cups plain (all-purpose) flour, sifted
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
1. In the bowl of an electric mixer cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs and mix until well combined. Add the sifted flour and baking powder as well as the salt and mix just until the dough comes together. If the dough is still sticky add a little more flour until a nice smooth dough forms.
2. After the cookie dough is made roll it out on a silicone baking mat or parchment (baking) paper, so you don’t have to transfer the large cookie shapes later, to approximately 5mm thick and spread it far enough to cut out the large cookie shapes later. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to firm up the dough to make cutting out easier.
3. Place your cookie cake template carefully on top of the rolled out dough and cut out the shape using your plastic cookie cutter tool or a blunt butter knife. Take your time and keep the blade as upright as you can so that the edge of the cookie is cut straight.
4. After cutting around the outer edge and inner edge (if you want the inside removed also for some shapes) carefully lift off the cookie dough away from the cutout shape.
5. Slide the baking mats with the cookies on top onto a cookie sheet or baking tray and put the cookie cutouts back into the fridge to chill while the oven heats up or at least 15 minutes. This will help the cookie to keep its shape when baked.
6. Heat oven to 160°C (325°F) and bake for 20-25 minutes or until cooked. Take the cookies out of the oven and leave the cookies on the trays to cool completely. Large cookies can be difficult to move without breaking, especially when they are warm.
Notes
Author’s notes: This vanilla cookie recipe can be matched with so many different flavor combinations. This recipe doesn’t spread when baked so is perfect for cut-out cookies and hand-cut large cookies for cookie cakes. The dough can be rolled out and cut as soon as it is made, however I like to chill it before hand-cutting out just to make it a bit easier to keep the exact shape I want. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Keywords: vanilla, cookies, vanilla cookies, cookie cakes
Leave a Reply