One of my favorite go-to things to bake are actually the simplest things ever: chocolate chip cookies. I don’t have a fancy recipe (I literally just use the one on the back of the Hershey’s chocolate chip package), but in my opinion, a warm chocolate chip cookie dipped in milk at the end of a long day is like heaven. So as I was whipping up a batch the other day, I had an epiphany: why not translate the deliciousness of chocolate chip cookies and milk into cake form? It didn’t take me long after that to start testing recipes for the best milk & cookies cake ever. Here’s what happened:
It’s a chocolate chip cookie flavored cake with vanilla buttercream, chocolate ganache, and plenty of homemade chocolate chip cookies on top! I’m calling it a Milk & Cookies Cake as a nod to its inspiration.
Let’s talk about this cake. I based the ingredients off of my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, so there are both brown and white sugars involved in the creaming process. The brown sugar gives such a deep, rich flavor and adds a little bit of moisture. I wanted it to be extra moist though, so I added a some sour cream to the batter as well.
You can use regular sized chocolate chips in this recipe, but I opted for mini chocolate chips instead! Either way, be sure to coat them in a few Tbsp of flour before folding them into your batter at the end. That will make it less likely for them to sink to the bottom of your cake layers in the baking process.
Vanilla buttercream is the milk to this chocolate chip cookie cake, and it provides a nice subtle flavor to wrap it all up in. Just like milk to a cookie, it’s a great complementary flavor that doesn’t try to steal the spotlight. Not too sweet, just right.
I used Wilton Tip 1M to pipe a buttercream rope border on top, then topped it with some homemade chocolate chip cookies to really go the extra mile! Here’s a quick video to show you the entire decorating process, from filling and frosting the cake layers to garnishing with cookies and chocolate ganache:
Like I said before, I’m all about the basic recipe on the back of the Hershey’s chocolate chip bag (although sometimes I get a little crazy and substitute the vanilla extract for almond extract – so tasty!), but if you’ve got a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and want to make them your cake toppers, my hat’s off to you. If you want to use store bought cookies like Chips Ahoy instead, you totally have my blessing. However you decorate it, you can be sure that this cake will satisfy all the cookies and milk loving people in your life!
Milk & Cookie Cake
Ingredients
Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
- 3 3/4 Cups (400g) cake flour, sifted before measuring
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 1/8 Cup (254g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 Cup (220g) granulated white sugar
- 3/4 Cup (140g) packed brown sugar
- 5 large eggs, room temperature
- 1/2 Cup (112g) sour cream, room temperature
- 1 1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 Cups (355ml) whole milk, room temperature
- 1 1/2 Cups (283g) mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, coated in 1.5 Tbsp flour
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
- 2 Cups (452g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 7 Cups (840g) powdered sugar
- 3 Tbsp (45ml) whole milk, room temperature
- 4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
For Garnish (optional)
- chocolate chip cookies
- chocolate ganache drip (see link below)
Instructions
Make The Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare three 8-inch or four 6-inch cake pans by spraying the sides with a cooking spray (Baker's Joy is my favorite) and a wax paper circle fitted to the bottom of the pan. Alternatively, you can grease and lightly flour the pans.
- Sift the cake flour and then measure by spooning and leveling it in your measuring cup. Add the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer (a handheld mixer works fine too!), cream the butter for on high for two minutes until it’s light and fluffy. Add in white and brown sugars and continue to mix on medium-high for another two minutes, scraping down the bowl and paddle as needed. Turn the mixer to low and add the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla and sour cream, turn the mixer to high, and mix for one minute, scraping down the bowl and paddle once more.
- With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Add the whole milk and mix until just incorporated. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and give it a few stirs to make sure there are no lumps, then fold in the flour-coated chocolate chips. Batter will be slightly thick, but pourable.
- Pour batter evenly into prepared cake pans (about 2/3 of the way full) and bake for 35-40 minutes. The cakes are done when they spring back to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the pan for five minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack for an additional few hours of cooling. Make sure they’re entirely room temperature before applying any frosting.
Make The Vanilla Buttercream
- With a hand mixer or paddle attachment on your stand mixer, cream the butter on medium-high until it’s creamy and light (almost white) in color. About 7 minutes.
- Add the powdered sugar, one cup at a time, scraping down after each addition and making sure each cup is fully incorporated before adding the next one. Add vanilla, milk, and salt and mix on medium-low for another two minutes until fully incorporated.
Assembly
- Fill and frost the cake layers with vanilla buttercream. Crumble the chocolate chip cookies (either homemade or store-bought) and garnish the cake by adding them to the bottom third of the frosted cake, pressing the crumbles in to the sides.
- If garnishing with a chocolate ganache drip, chill the cake for 30 minutes before dripping with ganache. Finish by piping a border on top with vanilla buttercream (I used Wilton Tip 1M) and placing whole chocolate chip cookies on top.
I am in the process of making this cake for my daughter’s birthday, and I think you have the pan size listed incorrectly. Do you mean three NINE-inch pans? I happen to have six-inch pans like the recipe says, but I had WAY too much batter for three of them. I ended up needing 4 of the six-inch pans, plus a small loaf pan to fit all the batter.
Hi Becky! I always use three 6-inch pans (filled 2/3 full) but this recipe does make some extra batter.
So three 8” pans will be ok for this recipe? No need to adjust amounts?
Hi Shanthi! That’s correct. I always use 6″ pans and have batter left over, it ends up being enough for three 8″ pans.
This looks really delicious since my husband and I are not exchanging anniversary gifts even though it’s our 20th because we are saving for Italy in April. I think he might like this cake for our Anniversary.
Happy 20th wedding anniversary, Debbie! You should totally make this cake to celebrate!
This cake was very moist, tasted just like chocolate chip cookie flavor, and held up nicely. The only reason for a 4 star is that the frosting that went with it was too sweet for my taste. (Others may like the amount of sweetness though!) I would try it again, but use a less sweet frosting. Other than that, for me, it was delicious!
Hi Meghan! So happy you loved the cake part of the recipe 🙂
The recipe says to add the whole milk mixture yet there’s no instructions on what’s in the mixture. Do you just mean to add 1.5 cups whole milk?
Thanks for catching that, Kim! It was just a typo and I fixed it. I meant to add the 1.5 cups of whole milk in that part of the recipe 🙂
Have you ever tried this as a cupcake?? Looks amazing!
Hi Hannah! I have never tried this recipe as cupcakes but a friend of mine has. They said it turned out amazing as cupcakes, so feel free to give it a try! Just be sure to fill the cupcake tins no more than 2/3 full and bake at 350 for 17 min.
How many cupcakes per recipe? 12 or 24?
I made the cake yesterday and am making cupcakes today for an event!!! The cake was sublime!!!!!!
Hi Ninfa! This recipe will make a lot of cupcakes, probably around 35. I’ve heard this recipe is amazing as cupcakes!!
I made this for my father-in-law’s 86th Birthday. It came out great except I forgot to put the chocolate ganache on. I made my chocolate chip cookies using a recipe I found on Pinterest. Everyone loved it. Thanks for a great recipe.
That’s so wonderful to hear, Mandy!! I’m so happy the cake was a hit!
Hello! I am going to make this cake for son’s birthday, but I don’t have 6 inch cake pans! Can I use 2 8 inch pans instead? All the cake pan/math conversions everywhere are so confusing! Thanks. Lisa, Sydney, Australia
Hi Lisa! You can totally use 8-inch cake pans for this recipe. You’ll have some cake batter left over (probably even enough for another 8 inch layer if they’re short layers). You can bake the cake according to the instructions, just check the cake layers at 40 minutes and see if they need more time.
I made this cake for a shower yesterday and it came out perfectly. A big hit! Thanks for sharing.
That’s so great to hear, Janet! So happy everyone loved the cake!!
Hello Whitney, I’m looking for an eggless cake recipe for my friend birthday and she loves cookies! Can I replace all egg with sour cream? Thank you.
Hi Natalie! I’ve never made an eggless cake before and wouldn’t know what to substitute the eggs with. You can certainly try it and let me know how it goes, but since I’ve never tested it myself I can’t recommend substituting the eggs!
Hi there! Making this cake for my daughters 28th birthday. The 6 inch round look so tiny to me, lol. The picture of the cake looks more like 8 inch rounds. Also, do I use 6×2 or 6×3? Thank you!
Hi Robin! What an awesome way to celebrate your daughter’s birthday! Yes – the 6 inch rounds look small but when you have three layers it makes a good sized cake (feeds about 15 people!). The cake pictured is three 6-inch layers and I used 6 x 2 pans.
Hi Whitney, you mentioned in the recipe to use four 6-in or three 8-in. But above you say the cake pictured is three 6-in. Can you please clarify what works best with this recipe.
Hi Michelle! It is three 6 inch layers pictured, but the recipe makes a lot more batter. I’ve been meaning to scale it down to fit three 6-inch pans or two 8-inch pans but for now the recipe portion makes enough batter for four 6-inch pans or three 8-inch pans. So in other words you can make it as-is and make three 6-inch layers, but you’ll have extra batter. Hope that makes sense!
Hello! Is the recipe still appropriate for 3 8-inch pans? Planning on making this weekend for a dinner party.
Hi Garrett! Yes. It makes enough for three 8-inch layers or four 6-inch layers.
Hi Whitney! I would like to try this recipe but I have a question for you, How do I get the sour cream? I am at Portugal so sour cream is not very used in our tradicional recipes, Sometimes I use “Milk cream” wich is a tippically used at brazilian bakery. Could this be the same? or can I make sour cream at home?Thanks
Hi Ana! Sour cream is a thick mixture similar to greek yogurt. You could totally substitute it for full fat greek yogurt, but I think milk cream is different than sour cream so I can’t recommend that as a substitute. If you don’t have full fat greek yogurt on hand, you could omit the sour cream, but the results may not be as moist. You could definitely give it a try though!
Hi ! Do the buttercream crust ? Look si smoothie
Hi Tanya! The buttercream does crust after about 30 minutes 🙂
I’m thinking about making this tomorrow? Is it too sweet though with chocolate chips all throughout the cake?
Hi Colette! I don’t think it’s too sweet, especially since the chocolate chips are semi-sweet. I think it tastes just like a chocolate chip cookie in cake form, but if you think chocolate chip cookies are too sweet you could always reduce the amount of chocolate chips or reduce the white sugar by 1/4 cup or so.
Should i use sour cream in this cake !!
Hi Hala! The recipe calls for sour cream, just for added moisture. I would definitely use it as the recipe calls for it!
This cake looks amazing!!! Could I use all purpose flour instead of cake flour? Would love to make this for Valentine’s Day for the hubby 🙂
Hi Vicki! The reason I use cake flour for this recipe is because it’s what makes the cake super fluffy. You can use all purpose flour, but the cake will end up being more dense. There is a really easy way to convert all purpose flour to cake flour though: for every 1 cup of all purpose flour, remove 2 Tbsp, and replace with 2 Tbsp of corn starch. Repeat for however much cake flour you need. Sift the mixture 5-6 times (don’t skip that step), then measure out how much cake flour the recipe calls for. That should make your cake softer and fluffier than all purpose flour alone.