Cookie cakes! Are you familiar with the trend? They’re the jumbo sugar cookies that are piped with frosting, stacked and then decorated. It appears the trend was started by baker Adi Klinghofer over in Israel. By now, you’ve most likely seen her lovely letter and number cookies over on instagram!
The cookie cakes are typically piped with frosting and decorated with a variety of decadent toppings of choice, including candy and flowers. They’re absolutely gorgeous to look at and offer a whimsical and fun alternative to traditional cakes, for parties and celebrations. The look of Adi’s large number and letter cakes, inspired me to enlarge the size of some of my original cookie cutter designs, to give the cookie cakes a fun twist! I envisioned serving the themed cookie cakes at my daughter’s birthdays and so I moved forward with designing two original jumbo shapes for my shop. A cactus and a unicorn. My latest design is a mermaid tail and will be available soon!
Though I cannot take any form of credit for the cookie cake concept, these jumbo cookie cutter shapes and designs are unique to me and my brand Posh Little Designs and fully protected by Copyright ©
If we’re connected over on instagram, you might’ve seen the unicorn and cactus cookie cakes that I made.
Today I want to show you how to make a cookie cake of your own, especially after the fun poll I did in my Instagram stories. I asked if I should create a cactus or unicorn tutorial for the blog and the cactus won (by a small percentage), so here we are today with a cactus cookie cake DIY. With Cinco de Mayo happening on Saturday, the timing couldn’t be better.
This cactus cookie cake is a bit different from the first one I made on instagram. I changed my tip to Wilton star 6B and tinted some of the frosting green, using a natural food coloring. The star tip makes frosting designs that resemble succulents, so it was a fitting option for the cookie cake! I made my frosting with Cinco de mayo in mind and infused it with margarita flavors. Fresh squeezed lime juice, lime zest and a little salt, so good! It’s also vegan and my cookies as always are dairy free.
The best part of making the cookie cake is of course decorating it! From sprinkles and candy, to fruit and flowers, macarons, meringues and much more. The possibilities are endless. I used what I had on hand to top mine.
Macarons, petite roses, mini cactus cookies and sprinkles.
Scroll down for instructions, and my cookie and frosting recipe.
CACTUS COOKIE CAKE DIY
Supplies/Ingredients:
Jumbo cactus cookie shape (10 inches) This can be found in my shop.
Two baked jumbo cactus cookies, cooled and preferably 1 day old.
White frosting with large round tip, or just the coupler.
Tinted green frosting with Wilton tip 6B.
Decorations and toppings: (Optional) Mini cactus cookies that I made with leftover dough from the jumbo cacti, petite roses, leftover macarons, and white and gold sprinkles.
Instructions (see slideshow):
- Begin by piping round rows of the white frosting onto the first cactus cookie.
- Continue piping the white frosting onto the cactus until it’s fully covered. If the frosting isn’t perfect it’s ok because you’ll be stacking a second cookie on top and won’t see any imperfections.
- Stack the 2nd cookie right on top of the first cookie (covered in frosting)
- Once stacked, pipe three large dollops of the green frosting (with Wilton 6B) onto each section of the cactus. Their shape should resemble the look of a succulent.
- THEN starting at the bottom of the cactus, pipe small rows of frosting stars up the trunk of the cactus and around the edges. You should be able to fit 3 frosting stars on each row of the trunk, working your way up the cactus through the center and both sides.
- Once you’re finished piping the stars, and the cactus cookie is fulling covered in the green frosting, pipe on a little of the white frosting around the green for contrast.
- Now it’s time to top it! I started by decorating with my largest treats, the macarons. Placing them each in a separate place on the cookie. Then I added 4 roses. 2 cactus cookies and finished with sprinkles.
- I recommend making the cookie the night before you plan to eat it. For toppings like flowers, add them the morning of serving and for fruit, add an hour before serving.
- Cut cake into pieces and serve on small plates. The cookie cakes are soft enough to eat like a real cake with a fork, or for more fun your hands.
NOTE: Please don’t be intimidated by the large size of the cookies. They are actually only about 10 inches long and really easy to work with! To make mine, I rolled the dough out onto parchment paper. Once I cut my shape I transferred the jumbo cookie (and parchment) onto a baking sheet and then put it the oven. You can bake the jumbo cookies at the same temp as regular cookies, but just increase the cooking time by about 2 minutes max. The key is to not let them brown, so you’ll want to watch them closely in the oven. I also recommend allowing finished cookies to fully cool before transferring them, so that they don’t break. I prefer decorating on day old cookies.
Jumbo Sugar Cookies with Margarita Cream Frosting
Description
Lightly sweetened jumbo sugar cookies and vegan cream frosting made with fresh lime juice, zest and a little sea salt. It’s like a dessert margarita!
Ingredients
- FOR THE SUGAR COOKIES
- Jumbo Cookie Cutter (Posh Shop)
- 3/4 cups vegan butter (or real butter softened)
- 1 cups white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- FOR MARGARITA CREAM FROSTING
- 2 cups organic shortening
- 1.5 cups powdered sugar
- 2 TBSP lime juice
- Zest from 1 lime
- 1/2 tsp pink Himalayan sea salt
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
- Green and Blue natural food coloring
Toppings
- Sprinkles of choice, flowers/petite roses, macarons, mini sugar cookies.
Instructions
- FOR THE SUGAR COOKIES
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Cream together butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, until combined.
- Mix in eggs and vanilla.
- Stir in flour, baking powder and salt.
- Mix on med-hi until combined.
- You’ll know your cookie mix is ready when most of it sticks to the mixing paddle.
- Roll dough out onto a large sheet of parchment (about 1/2 inch thick)
- Cut into two large cactus shapes with jumbo cactus cutter.
- Cut the parchment in half and transfer the jumbo cacti dough onto two separate baking sheets.
- Bake cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet for about 5-6 minutes.
- Remove from heat and cool completely.
FOR THE FROSTING
- Combine all ingredients into the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix until incorporated and taste. You can add a little more powdered sugar if you prefer a sweeter frosting.
- Transfer half of the white frosting to a piping bag fitted with a round coupler.
- Mix 3 drops green food coloring coloring into the remaining frosting. You can add a little blue coloring if the frosting looks too yellow. The color you’re looking for is a soft mint hue.
- Transfer the tinted frosting to the piping bag fitted with Wilton tip 6B.
Notes
- Jumbo Cookies that are a day old are easier to decorate with, so make your cookies the day before if possible. The frosting and cookies can be sealed and kept on the counter until ready for decorating.
I’m planning to make more cookie cakes for both of my daughter’s upcoming birthdays! If you make one, with one of my cutters, be sure to tag me so I can see your beautiful creation! Also please comment below with any questions you might have! I’d love to answer them and hear what shape you’d like to see me cookie cake next!
I’m serving the cactus on this stunning platter from Juliska! Perhaps with a side of margaritas! Products I used are linked.
Cheers!
This post titled Cactus Cookie Cake was seen first on Posh Little Designs. All Rights Reserved. 2018
Yum
Thank you! It was pretty delicious!