COOKIES 'n CREAM HOLIDAY CAKE

 I had a recipe picked out, had bought the ingredients I didn't have for it, got ready to make it Sunday to take to Hillcrest Thrift Shop yesterday, and I couldn't find the recipe. Still haven't. I wanted to take it to celebrate an early St. Patrick's Day.

So Sunday afternoon after giving up on finding the recipe, I started looking for something else I could take. I wanted it be green, but since I have made at least three different cakes for St. Patrick's Day using pistachio pudding mix that I have shared with you, I wanted to find something different. I finally looked in my recipe box and found this recipe for Cookies 'n Cream Cake. I didn't have any Oreo cookies, but thought I would buy some that had a green filling in them and then my cake would look like a special cake for St. Patrick's Day.

Well, the cake received many compliments from the volunteers especially how "light" tasting it was. No one got the connection with St. Patrick's Day though. If you decide to make this cake for a St. Patrick's Day celebration, I would recommend adding a little green food coloring when you mix up the cake batter. That's what I plan to do next time. Since I had spent so much time just getting a recipe and then having to go buy some special cookies, I just took the easy way out and used a container of cream cheese frosting. It tastes as good as anything I would make and with no effort.

If you are making the cake for another occasion and wanted a different color cake, just change the color of the food coloring. Red for Valentine or even Christmas. If you made the 2 round layers, you could make one layer red and one layer green for Christmas. For July the 4th, you could have one layer red, one layer blue, and then have the white frosting. And don't forget Easter.

COOKIE' 'N CREAM CAKJE

1           moist white cake mix

1-1/4     cup water

1/4        cup oil

3           egg whites

green food coloring if you want the cake to be green

1           cup coarsely crushed creme-filled chocolate sandwich cookies (with green mint filling)

vanilla or cream cheese frosting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease and flour a 9 x 13 - inch baking dish/pan. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the cake mix, water, oil, eggs, and food coloring if you like. Stir on low til cake mix is moistened. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Increase speed of the mixer to medium and beat 2 minutes.

Scrape the sides of the bowl again.

With a spoon or spatula, stir in crushed cookies.

Pour batter into pan and

bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until cake tests done.

Cool 1 hour or until completely cooled in pan on wire rack.

Frost cake with frosting. 

Garnish with additional cookies.

Cake can also be baked in two 8 or 9 - inch round cake pans that have been greased and floured. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes. Cool 15 minutes. Remove from pans. Cool 1 hour or until copletely cooled. Frost.