The secret to a good cookie cake

Yesterday, I pulled out a box of cake mix so I could make some cake mix cookies, but then decided I was too lazy to drop spoonfuls of dough on the pan to actually make cookies. The solution, make a big pan cookie or in other words a cookie cake.

A few years ago during my college days I worked at a Mrs. Fields so I know all about cookie cakes. The secret to a good cookie cake (maybe it's not a secret) is not in the recipe. Although, if you have the best recipe for cookies ever it wouldn't hurt. The secret is in the cooking time and temperature.

So, here is how we make a cookie cake.

First you make some cookie dough, any cookie dough will do, chocolate chip, sugar, peanut butter, really anything you want to use. I made cake mix cookie dough with devil's food and added butterscotch chips. Now, take that cookie dough and press it into a pan, leaving 1/4 -1/2 of an inch so the dough has room to spread without having to grow up the sides. What size should the pan be? I guess it depends on how much dough you have, but you want a pant thats the right size for your dough to be 1/4 - 1/2 an inch think.

Here is where the success comes in: the actual baking. If you want your cookie cake to turn out you want it to bake evenly. That means lowering the temperature and lengthening the baking time.  My recipe called for my cookies to bake at 375 °F for 8 -10 minutes. I dropped the temperature 50 degrees to 325 and doubled the baking time to 16-20 minutes. Mine probably ended up baking 18 minutes.

See, how it spread to the edge and baked even.

If you plan on whipping up some frosting to decorate your cookie cake you of course need to let it cool so the frosting doesn't melt. The Hubby and I just drizzled some butterscotch sauce on ours and enjoyed it while it was still warm and gooey along side some hot cocoa.