Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
As you may remember, I spoke a little bit about my favorite childhood dessert, Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie -- a ginormous soft baked chocolate chip cookie topped with a scoop of ice cream -- in this post for Strawberry Jam Crostata. This got me wondering if I could make something similar, that captured the same magic of an over-sized cookie, but without the skillet (my oven is far too small to fit a whole skillet, and I wanted something more portable for the office). Enter the Cookie Cake, or rather a giant, soft baked cookie that can be cut in to slices and served as if it were a cake. Cookie Cakes are incredibly simple and fast to throw together, giving you all the taste of a cookie without having to portion out the dough and bake various batches. They are bound to delight your guests, because there is something downright charming about a giant cookie, don't you think?
I decided to make this Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake for a lunch hosted by my sister's lovely colleague, Alessia. Alessia and her son Nico have a true love for American desserts -- the more butter, sugar, and frosting, the better -- and had particularly fallen in love with these Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies I made for them a while back. Needless to say then, this Cookie Cake was well received by all, especially Nico, who didn't speak for the first few minutes after trying it.
And it's easy to understand why -- this cookie cake is filled with pockets of melted gooey chocolate, soft and chewy and cinnamon-y, perfect served warm with a scoop of ice cream.
A couple of notes: I used chocolate chunks here rather than chocolate chips as a matter of preference, but feel free to use chocolate chips. You could also use milk chocolate here instead of semisweet, but the dessert would be considerably sweeter. Finally, be very careful not to over bake this -- you want a soft cookie, not a crunchy one! Enjoy!!!
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OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE CAKE
Recipe slightly adapted from www.crazyforcrust.com. Serves 10-12.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (112 grams) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (100 grams) brown sugar
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (about 2.5 grams) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 (135 grams) cups quick cooking oats
1 cup (170 grams) semisweet chocolate, chopped into chunks
Vanilla ice cream, for serving
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 9 inch spring-form pan.
In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugars with electric beaters. Beat in the egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and oats.
Incorporate this into the butter and sugar mixture (I usually stir it in with a spoon and then use the electric beaters to briefly mix everything really well). Stir in the chocolate.
Press the cookie dough into the prepared pan. Bake for about 20-24 minutes, until the top is golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm.