4th of July Layered Cookie Cake
I saw this recipe in my Google Reader and knew instantly that I would be making it soon. Since my family was going to be in town for the holiday and we all love cookie cakes, I had the perfect opportunity. And I would have the opportunity to use my flag plate which only comes out once a year.
My little sister and I made the cake and everyone LOVED it! The filling between layers was a perfect compliment to the chewy chocolatey cookie layers. We halved the recipe and it made about 12 servings. We made it with half chocolate chips and half M&Ms so that it was festive for the 4th of July. We had my little brother sort out a bag of M&Ms and just pull out the red and blue ones. What a great guy!
Below, I am listing the halved recipe that I used. Please see original post for original recipe and her story about the cookie cake. We used a small flag and some festive cupcake decorations so spice up the look of the cake. The cookies were very moist and easy to cut through. I ended up only using about 3/4 of the filling and it worked out to be a good ratio of cookie to filling.
Layered Cookie Cake – from Dozen Flours – originally from Martha Stewart Online
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cups packed light brown sugar
6 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, plus 1 egg yolk
6 Tbsp heavy cream
3/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cups red and blue M&Ms
If you have a Silpat mat: Trace an 6 1/2 inch circle on a piece of parchment paper using a marker. Place it face up on a cookie sheet. Place your Silpat mat face up on top of the parchment. You should be able to see the circle you drew peeking beneath the Silpat. If you don’t have a Silpat mat, flip the parchment paper face down on the cookie sheet.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Put butter and brown and granulated sugars into mixer bowl and mix on medium until well combined (it will look very dry and not fluffy at all). Mix in vanilla, eggs, and yolks. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the cream. Stir in chocolate chips and M&Ms.
Divide the batter evenly into 3 bowls. Drop batter onto center of baking sheet. Keep unbaked dough refrigerated while the other dough is baking. Using a small offset spatula, spread into a circle, using the drawing on the parchment paper, or as close as you can get it.
Bake for 10 minutes. Rotate cookie and reshape if necessary (mine did not need to be reshapen). Bake for 8-10 more minutes untile edges are golden brown. DO NOT OVER COOK! Remember you’re going to have to cut through all 3 cookies. Slightly under-cooked cookies is what you want. Transfer to wire rack; let cool. Can be stored airtight up to 1 day.
Cream Cheese Filling2 8oz packages of full fat cream cheese, room temperature
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cups confectioners’ sugar
Mix cream cheese, vanilla, and confectioners’ sugar in clean mixer bowl on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Divide in half spread onto 2 cookies. Stack cookies onto a cake board or platter, placing unfrosted cookie on top. Refrigerate until frosting is set, at least 20 minutes or overnight. Serve at room temperature.
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
These look fantastic and are so festive!
Oh my, these look divine! I recently made something similar, but with no chocolate – just a pumpkin batter with cream cheese topping. But I definitely think I must try these too.
These are absolutely beautiful!
Look wonderful!
These look awesome. I just wish it made a bigger pan!
They’re pretty rich, but I would imagine you could just double it and make it in a 9×13 pan if you wanted!
I made pumpkin spice brownies on Friday and they were delish so I bet these are EVEN BETTER! Thanks for sharing and I’ll be following your tweaks!
~ingrid
i always make a pumpkin cheesecake in the fall with a ginger cookie crumb crust, but i’m liking the chocolate component in your recipe even more.
oh yum – love pumpkin, and the chocolate/pumpkin combo looks wonderful!
These look great! Is there a way I can make them non-dairy? Something I can sub the cream cheese for? Thanks!
Heather – I’ve had great luck subbing Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese in cheesecake recipes in the past. I think that would definitely work and you could use Earth Balance in the brownie portion. Let me know how it turns out if you try it.
Hi Jenn! I just wanted to let you know that you won the giveaway on my blog last week. I emailed you, but never got a response. Could you email me your mailing address to jennharton@paducah.com. I have to pass it along to myblogspark so they can send you your prize package!
Thanks, Jen…I’ll let you know how they come out!
OH wow these do look delicious! I love all that swirled pumpkin…yum!
Those look amazing!
Wow, I love these! My husband would die of happiness of I made these for him – pumpkin cheesecake is his favorite thing for fall.
They look like tiger fur – very cool! What an interesting flavour combination.
We love these at my house! I like your idea of dark chocolate – I will have to try that next time.
beautiful! And they look so delicious!! I agree I don’t normally think of pumpkin with chocolate… but you have me convinced!
The tops of these are a work of art! Love it!
Three of my favorite thi ngs in one dessert! Chocolate and pumpkin and cheesecake! How perfect…
~Nancy
Three of my favorite thi ngs in one dessert! Chocolate and pumpkin and cheesecake! How perfect…
~Nancy
hi.. just dropping by here… have a nice day! http://kantahanan.blogspot.com/
The side-view shot totally won me over. These look delicious!
This looks so yummy.
I now know what to make for the office potluck!
Those look amazing. I love pumpkin with chocolate, I plan on making these soon.
Your brownies look delicious! I am curious since I would like mine to taste more like pumpkin pie than plain pumpkin should i add pumpkin pie spices or follow your recipe for the spices?
Thanks!
fawkes – There are a decent amount of spices in the pumpkin portion of the batter. I would recommend making is as the recipe states, then taste it before you pour it into the pan. Maybe then add some pumpkin pie spice if you’d like.
I made these over the weekend and they were scrumptious!! I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin but this recipe is now a fall staple. I plan on making them for the family on Thanksgiving…thanks for sharing this!
I made these the other day and they were great! a hit at work! yum! thanks!
I stumbled across your blog from a Facebook friend and made these brownies last night. DELICIOUS!! I doubled the recipe and it does just fit in a 9×13 pan and took about 60 mins to bake. It’s worth the wait for them to be chilled in the fridge. The flavors are even more delicious that way.
Oh YUM! And gorgeous, to boot. I never thought pumpkin and chocolate go together either, until I tried it! 🙂 Now I’m hooked. Good idea to double up on the cheesecake layer…you can never have enough pumpkin cheesecake after all!
Thank you so much for participating in our event! These brownies look amazing. They say Halloween to me for sure!
I made these– now I love them! Will be repeated each fall 🙂
Amazing! I loved these so much I played with them a bit and made cranberry cheesecake brownies for my christmas baking.(I didn’t stumble on to these till christmas.) I’ll let you know when I put those up on my blog! With credit to you of course!
Lexi – cranberry cheesecake brownies sound very intriguing. Can’t wait to see them.
Hi Jen! I made these for Heather@BFM’s (comment listed above) birthday and she loved them! Unfortunately I could not find the Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder (I tried 3 stores) so I had to make them with the regular cocoa powder. Can you tell me where you found the Hershey’s Special Dark??
Kasey – I have actually had a hard time finding it as well. I had actually all but given up on it until one day it caught my eye at the grocery store. I proceeded to buy all three containers. I would say just keep an eye out for it and good luck!
1/2 cup of flour seems like very little. Is that correct?
Pup – Yes, that is the correct amount of flour. Most brownie batters have very little flour in them.
Just made these- delicious! I only had the milk chocolate powder, so I’m excited to try it again with the special dark powder.
I doubled the recipe and it perfectly filled a 13×9 pan so you might try it. 🙂 And they are amazing. Also I used margerine not butter and found they were more moist. Happy Baking!
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I made these with my nieces and over all they were pretty good, but something about the pumpkin part tasted off. Still, fun and festive to make!