Oreo Cookies and Cream Cake

Posted On January 23, 2019

My sister is a December baby. Her birthday is a few days before Christmas. When she was born, the nurse put her in a large stocking. My mother still calls her the best Christmas present she ever got. So cute, so fun, right?

Yes and no. Since my sister’s birthday is so close to Christmas, her birthday’s often treated like an afterthought. Everyone is so focused on holiday preparations that her birthday becomes just another event in an already busy month. When we were kids, relatives would often give her a combination Christmas/birthday present. Not cool, man. Not cool. Never cheat a kid out of a birthday present. They don’t forget.

My sister’s a sweetheart so I’ve never heard her complain about these slights, but I still like to try to do something (however small) to make her birthday special and separate from Christmas.

For her birthday this year, for some reason my mind went directly to a time my sister and I lived together in Boston. My sister had just graduated college and I was in my last year of law school. We lived in an apartment in a great pre-war building in Brookline, MA.

It was a challenging year for my sister. Working your first “real” job after college is a rude awakening and my sister’s job – admirably – was at suicide prevention non-profit. Total double whammy. On hard days she’d stop at the nearby Star Market and buy this chocolate Oreo cake they made to cheer herself up.

Sidenote: Does anyone else who lived in the Boston-area shop at Star Market? Or, as you pronounce it in Boston, “Stah Mahket”. R’s have no meaning up there.

I have fond memories of when my sister would buy this Oreo cake at Star Market and we’d just demolish it. Ah, to have a twenty-something metabolism again . . . .

This year for her birthday I wanted to make her a version of that cake. But better. Thus, this Oreo Cookies and Cream Cake recipe was born.

There’s plenty Oreo cake recipes online already, but none struck me as quite right. First, there are those Instagram worthy ones with a glossy ganache artfully dripped over top. Which looks great but I’m way too “close enough” for those. I can tell you with confidence my ganache wouldn’t look artful. It would be more like “who ruined this cake by spilling on it?” Part of being “close enough” is having a good understanding of your own limits. So those cakes were out.

Second, many of the other recipes online just did not have enough Oreo in them. I wanted a cake with Oreos in every part. So for my Oreo Cookies and Cream cake, I put Oreos in the cake. I put Oreos in the frosting. I even put a layer of Oreo crumbs between the frosting and the cake – a la Fudgie the Whale ice cream cake.

The result? An Oreo Cookies and Cream cake that doesn’t just whisper “I’m Oreo, I think?” It shouts “I’m an Oreo cake!” Oreo lovers gather round. Had a bad day? Make this cake stat. An Oreo Cookies and Cream cake may not solve all the world’s problems but, as my sister can attest, it can always make a bad day a little sweeter.

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