If you have no cake decorating skills (like me) then you’ll love the idea of a homemade whole-wheat cookie cake for the next birthday in your family. It takes very little – if any – talent to squirt some freshly whipped cream into the shape of a circle and your child’s first initial or age. I do want to warn you up front though this recipe calls for a little bit of refined sugar, which is not technically “real” but I think totally appropriate in GREAT moderation. One of the biggest problems with sugar today is the quantity in which it is consumed. And as I’ve shared before I think homemade treats are completely acceptable for occasions that truly are special and rare, although you’d be hard pressed to find me condoning factory-made, chemically-filled, artificial dye-laden treats any day of the year. :) So please forget that cookie cake place in the mall and instead spend a half hour making your very own cake from scratch…it’s easier than it looks!
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Whole-Wheat Cookie Cake
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups whole-wheat flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 stick butter (cold)
- ¼ cup sugar
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- ½ cup milk (whole milk always recommended)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup chocolate chips (or a combination of chocolate chips, nuts and/or Unreal M&M knockoffs)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a small bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
- In a large bowl fitted with an electric whisk cream the butter and sugar together. Add the egg, milk, and vanilla and mix until thoroughly combined. Lastly, continue beating on low speed while carefully pouring in the flour mixture. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Using a spatula or large spoon stir in the chocolate chips by hand.
- Carefully spread out the cookie dough onto the round baking pan. Take a few minutes to ensure one nice, even layer.
- Bake for 8 – 10 minutes or a light golden brown on top.
- Let cookie cake cool almost completely before gently sliding/pushing it onto a large round platter. Or if you’d rather be safe than sorry just leave it on the round pizza pan.
- Just before serving cover the outside edge with a pretty strip of homemade whipped cream and then add your child’s first initial or age in the middle. It might help to practice on an empty plate first. Good luck (and enjoy)!
Notes
Nutrition Facts
Made this for Father’s Day this year. I had fun decorating this cookie cake with chocolate whipped cream, which paired perfectly with the cookie! Very easy and good recipe. It’s so interesting it is a giant chocolate chip cookie but it’s also like a cake. :)
Does this cookie cake work to make & bake on a pizza stone?
Hello Heather. We’ve not tried.
Chocolate chip cookie cake happens to be my sons favorite “cake”, so am making it for first time for his birthday tomorrow! I did use 1/2 white flour, just cause he is picky, I made a single cookie to try out first and I’m impressed with the results!
I want to make this cookie cake for my four year old to take into school for his upcoming birthday (a class of 24)so I wanted to ask do you think I could double this recipe and bake it in a large rectangular sheet pan instead of the pizza pan?
Thanks!
Hi Caitlin. Yes, I think so….and the pan shape is not important but you may need to adjust the cooking time a bit. ;)
Wow, looks so yummy. Thanks for sharing this recipe. I will try to make this cake for my kiddos
Is this batter less stiff than traditional batters for cookies? I made this and it is still in oven after 10 min and still wet in center.
Hi Hollie. It is softer. Sorry that we aren’t able to answer recipe in real time. ~Amy
Just made the cookie wit coconut oil instead of butter and i use coconut palm sugar. The result- delucious cookie!! Thanks for the great recipie!
Hi Ashley. They would be more “cakey” than a typical chocolate cookie. It would make a dozen large cookies. ~Amy
Would this recipe work for making individual cookies also? Do you know how many it would yield?
Hi. I could only find a 14.5″ baking sheet. Will that work? Just bake for less time?
Hi Tiffany. Yes, you will just be making a thinner cookie cake. Just watch it closely but you probably won’t need to adjust time much if at all. ~Amy
My kiddos need everything to be dairy free. What would you use instead of butter for baked goods like these?
Hi Corina. We would typically sub with coconut oil. ~Amy
I was curious about how many servings this made. Wondering if one would be enough for my daughter’s party.
Hi Jessica. It’s a pretty big cookie. :) Much would depend on how you slice it. I’ve made it on a 14inch round pizza sheet and it easily served 8 generously. ~Amy
Would some raw cane sugar or coconut palm sugar work instead of brown sugar?
Hi Shirin. We’ve not tried it with an alternative sugar but I imagine it would work. The palm sugar has a similar consistency. ~Amy
Hi, I’m making this the night before the birthday party, do you think I should refrigerate it or leave it on the counter covered? Thanks!
Hi Kylie. If you hold off on adding the whipped cream, it will be fine on the counter. ~Amy
Just made this subbed all of the sugar for coconut palm sugar and doubled the recipe. I spread it in a jelly roll pan on parchment paper. It made a ton of bars. The consistency is definitely more like cake than cookie. I’m not sure if that had to do with my sugar change. But the kids and husband approved. Good sweet snack to have around the house. I froze half of them.
It’s the milk, not the sugar. Simply omit the milk and you are left w/ a more traditional cookie cake.This recipe is actually the same as the toll house recipe except w/ ww flour a a little less salt.
I also meant to add that the toll house has no milk.
I made this tonight and it is delicious! It was so easy and pretty quick to make. Will save this recipe for sure!
I never knew how easy it was to make one of these!!!
Hi! We love this cookie cake! We are headed out of town in a few days and I wanted to take this along as a special treat. Do you think it would freeze okay?
Hi Emily. It will freeze fine. ~Amy
Hey, this may be a crazy question but, do you think I could make the cookie cake using my pizza stone?? I only ask b/c I CANNOT find a 12-13″ pizza pan!!! :0 The only ones I’ve been able to find have holes in the bottom for pizza crust and I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t work for a cookie cake!! Thanks… ;)
Hi Jessica. Well, that is not something we have tried. If you do, let us know how it goes. ~Amy
Do you soak your wheat flour before cooking with it?
Hi there. Nope, we haven’t soaked. ~Amy
Can I use all purpose flour in place of the wheat flour? :)
Hi Ana. We’ve not tried as we do not use refined flour in our recipes. ~Amy
It’s great to at least make your food from scratch. Hate to say the things like butter, milk, sugar, salt, vanilla usually have GMO corn in some fashion. At least your avoiding additives that are in pre-made foods! Perhaps you can get others to do the same.
i’m bummed to say i tried this and it flopped bad : ( it didn’t at all taste well…i ended up throwing it away : ( i have terrible baking skills even if i use white flour and white sugar….but i sure wanted this more wholesome one to be good! any suggestions??
Hi Erica. Sorry to hear that you had a rough time with this recipe. Learning to bake does take practice but you can get there. Be sure that your ingredients are fresh and that you follow the recipe as stated. Don’t give up! Ya know, some people that enjoy being creative in the kitchen don’t like baking because it requires close attention to exact measurements and ingredients. I was one of those people but I’ve learned to adapt and improve my skills. :) ~Amy
How can you make this gluten free? I am always looking for gluten free options so I have something to make for my great nephew who cannot have gluten and my sister in law. I will defiantly be trying this recipe. I have recently purchased a bag of spelt flower and I’m going to try it with that.
Hi Ellen. We have not adapted our recipes for gluten free baking, as it is not our expertise. While I do quite a lot of gluten free cooking, for me it still requires a lot of trial and error. Deliciously Organic has a gluten/grain free chocolate chip cookie recipe that might give you some ideas: http://deliciouslyorganic.net/grain-free-chocolate-chip-cookies-paleo-primal/. I’ve also found gluten free versions of the cookie cake online but they all use prepared gluten free flour mixtures that are not whole grain. ~Amy
So I see most of your recipes are made with whole wheat flour is this 100% whole wheat or 100% white whole wheat? Are both equally healthy? Thanks!
Hi Melissa. Yes, they are both whole wheat. White whole wheat is just a lighter grain and has all the nutrition and fiber. ~Amy
Hi. I am making this today for my brother’s birthday party and I was wondering if I had to grease the pizza pan. This recipe looks great and luckily I had just enough chocolate chips. Love the site.
Margaret Anne (http://naturalwinners.blogspot.com)
Hi Margaret. Sorry but we rarely are able to respond in real time to comments. How did your cookie cake turn out? Hope it was a happy birthday! ~Amy
The cookie cake turned out great. I made two and filled the middle with cream cheese frosting. I found that greasing the pans didn’t help, but not greasing the pans didn’t work either. The sugar in the chocolate chips stuck to the pan and when I finally got the cake from the pan, all of the chocolate chips that stuck were still on the pan. I was thinking about perusing around Amazon for a round sil-pat because the cake was so delicious but I wanted to avoid the problem I had. The birthday party was great. The cake was amazing. Thanks for the recipe.
YEAH, my boys LOVED this cookie cake!! They both LOVE cookie cake for birthdays & I now have an amazing recipe to make my own going forward!!! I did use a frosting for the topping with powdered sugar, but I at least knew exactly what went into the frosting…4 ingredients: Butter, vanilla, powdered sugar & whipping cream.
Thanks so much for the recipes!!!
Danielle
Made this last night to practice for my sons 4th birthday at the end of the month. I had to make a few substitutions because we have dairy allergies. I used Almond Milk in place of the whole milk. Sucanat and coconut palm sugar in place of the white and brown sugar (also a bit of honey so it still would be sweet but only about 1/8 cup) and coconut oil in place of butter. For toppings we pureed dates, almond milk, and cacao powder for chocolate frosting and made coconut milk whipped cream. So easy to decorate! This turned out super yummy! My son is quite excited for his birthday cake!
I was just wondering how this recipe fits into the “real food” with the sugars in it? It sounds yummy and I would love to make it!
Hello Kim. This is one of the few recipes in which Lisa bends the rules a bit for rare special occasions. :) ~Amy
I have made this cookie cake twice now. The first time I followed the recipe as is and it turned out nice. The only complaint was that it had a grainy texture that not everyone appreciated (even though I told them it was healthier anyway!) This time I mixed White Lily A.P flour & whole wheat. It just came out of the oven, so we’ll see soon if it affected the texture. Thanks for the great recipe & the confidence that comes from making something all by yourself!
Hi! I tried this recipe using both unsweetened coconut milk and coconut oil (instead of milk and butter) because of a dairy allergy and it turned out quite delicious! I did a one-for-one substitute for both ingredients and it worked out just fine.
Also, what flavor of frosting would you recommend putting on this since I can’t use homemade whip cream?
…hmmmm, how about coconut whipped cream: http://www.pastryaffair.com/blog/coconut-whipped-cream.html? Looks like a pretty straight forward recipe. ~Amy
My daughter is allergic to dairy. Would this recipe turn out if I substituted the egg with 1 T flaxseed and 3 T water and substitute the whole milk with coconut milk? Thanks in advance!
Hi Jennifer. I’ve used flax as an egg substitute with success but have not tried it in this recipe. I think the coconut milk will work though the flavor might be slightly changed. Let us know your results. Good luck. ~Amy
Can this be made a day before it gets served? How should I store it?
Hi Lindsey. You can make it a day ahead. I would store it, once it cools, in an airtight container. Make and apply the whipped cream right before serving. Enjoy. ~Amy
Thank you for posting this! I was just informed that our son wants a cookie cake for his birthday and then, lo and behold, here’s the perfect recipe!! Can’t wait to give it a try!
Could you sub honey or maple syrup for the white sugar or will that change the consistency?
Hi Erin. Using honey or maple syrup would change the consistency. For alternatives to the more refined sugars in this recipe, you could try using coconut palm sugar for the white sugar, and muscovado for the brown sugar. ~Amy
I’ve made this twice and had to cook it at least twice as long as the directions say. I just took it out of the oven and it took 20-25 minutes. I wasn’t sure if something was wrong with my oven or if anyone else had this issue?
Hi Jenny. Well, it should not take so long to cook. Sometimes, I’ll have to adjust cooking time by a minute or two but never double. Did you fully preheat? Have you had trouble baking other items? If so, could be the oven. ~Amy
Can anyone tell me if this tastes similar to the kind you buy at the mall? Namely, a chewy type cookie cake, not crunchy?
Thanks!
Hi CeeCee. We’ve had no reports of a crunchy cookie. ;) ~Amy
Super excited to give this a try, but I would like to make this in a rectangle 8×12 baking dish. Anyone tried this? Think it will be ok without modifications?
Hi Kim – We’ve not tried it in an 8×12 dish, but it will be about 25% thicker if you do, so you will likely need to cook a little longer.
Thanks! I will give it a try and report back.
Yum! Just did a trial run because both my turning 6 year old and turning 4 year old requested a cookie cake for their birthday at school. Cookie cakes are the hot item at school! They LOVED it! Should I lightly grease the pan? I could not slide it off onto a platter and I might need to make 2 to accommodate my sons class (in reality for the teachers. I know they will all want to try it because I am the “weird mom” who complicates all things involving food!)