For my boyfriend’s sister’s birthday I wanted to surprise her with a cake, so I asked her what her favourite chocolate bar or sweets bar was for inspiration.  Instead, she said her favourite treats were Oreo biscuits.  This was a great idea but she was also following a gluten free diet, so I needed to find a way to still give her what she wanted!

For this I hunted around the supermarkets, thinking there must be something out there I could use!  Luckily, new in stock in my local supermarket, were Udis chocolate flavour sandwich cookies were sitting there on the shelf!  They’re quite pricey so I just used them in the cake frosting, and I decorated it with the normal wheat Oreo biscuits which could be easily taken off and not eaten.  Obviously, if you’re coeliac, stick purely to the gluten free options for all of it!

This cake was inspired from the BBC Good Food magazine, but I had to make it all gluten free.  It is an absolutely huge cake, so once sliced, I then recommend you halve the slice again…unless you’re feeling very indulgent!

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Chocolate Cookie Cake

Prep Time: 1 hour     Cook Time: 30 – 40 minutes     Servings: 20

Ingredients

For the Cake (makes 2 large cakes which you will cut in half, or if you do not have big tins, makes 4 20cm cakes)

• 400g gluten free plain flour (I use Dove’s Farm)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon xanthum gum (again, I use Dove’s Farm)
• 300ml vegetable oil
• 16 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 560g light brown sugar
• 4 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• 300ml buttermilk
• 200ml strong coffee or espresso
• 4 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs

For the frosting

• 250g slightly salted butter, softened
• 600g icing sugar, sifted
• 280g cream cheese
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 10 Udis Gluten Free chocolate sandwich cookies (or any other variation you find)

Toppings

• More gluten free chocolate sandwich cookies, broken up and whole

Method

1. Firstly you’ll need to bake the cakes.  Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees, and grease and line the tins
2. Place the flour, xanthum gum, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt into a large bowl and mix well, ensuring all the sugar lumps are broken up and evenly distributed
3. Pour the oil, buttermilk, coffee and vanilla into a jug and whisk together.  Add in the eggs and whisk again until smooth
4. Pour the liquids into the dry ingredients, and mix until all combined.  Pour the mixture evenly into the prepared tins and bake in the oven for 25 – 30 minutes until risen and a skewer comes out clean
   
5. Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes in the tin, and then flip out of the tin and leave again to cool for up to half an hour until completely cool

   (If you don’t want to decorate the cakes straight away, wrap the cooled cakes in clingfilm and you can place these in the fridge.  They’ll stay moist up until the next day when you can continue to assemble with the frosting)

6. If you have two large cakes, cut these in half so you end up with 4 layers.  Make sure the top of the cakes are flat to ensure the frosting won’t slip off and is evenly spread

Cookie Frosting

1. To make the frosting, put the butter into a bowl and sieve in half the icing sugar.  Mix this together with a spatula, then add in the remaining icing sugar, sieved.  Carefully then blend together with a mixer, and then once smooth, add in the cream cheese and continue to blend together
   
2. Put the cookies in a food processor, or bash with a rolling pin in a bag, and whizz/smash until it resembles crumbs
3. Add the biscuit crumbs into the frosting and mix again until it has combined

Cake Assembly

1. To assemble the cake, place one of your sponges onto a plate or cake stand.  Using roughly the icing, stack the remaining cakes on top of each other, spreading a generous amount of the frosting in between each layer
2. Pile the remaining half of the frosting on top of the cake, and using a spatula, spread out over the entire top and sides of the cake
3. Finally, decorate the cake with the cookies as you wish.  Enjoy!!!