Confetti Cookie Dough Cake with Strawberry Buttercream
My new Confetti Cookie Dough Cake with fresh whipped cream, edible cookie dough, and strawberry buttercream is the perfect way to celebrate any occasion!
Confetti Cookie Dough Cake
Get ready to party with my new Confetti Cookie Dough Cake! I actually made this cake for Mother’s Day, but to be honest, it turned out to be the perfect cake for a birthday. I mean, look how fun and cute this one is! The flavors and the look scream, “Happy Birthday!”
Here’s what we love about this cake:
- Tender and moist confetti cake layers
- The most delicious homemade whipped cream
- An entire layer of edible cookie dough
- Silky-smooth strawberry buttercream
Yes, there’s a lot going on, but I promise you – everything in this cake works so well together! The lightness of the whipped cream pairs beautifully with the dense cookie dough. Then, the strawberry buttercream adds a delicious finishing touch without taking away from the cake or the fillings.
How to Bake Moist Cake from Scratch
To ensure your cake layers come out perfectly moist, be sure to look through THIS blog post for all my tips for baking moist cake layers.
Edible Cookie Dough
What makes the cookie dough edible is cooking the flour first to kill any bacteria. To do this, you’ll evenly spread the flour over a baking sheet and bake it for about 10 minutes at 300 degrees F. Keep an eye on it to ensure it doesn’t brown. Allow the flour to cool to room temperature before using it in the cookie dough. We also omit the eggs from a traditional cookie dough recipe.
Strawberry Buttercream
This buttercream is a little different than other strawberry buttercream recipes on my blog because I’m only using fresh strawberries to make a puree. In the past, I’ve used strawberry emulsion in my Strawberry Dark Chocolate Truffle Cake and a combination of freeze dried strawberries and strawberry jam in my Strawberries and Cream Cake.
In my Confetti Cookie Dough Cake, this silky-smooth strawberry buttercream is the perfect balance to the slightly more dense chocolate chip cookie dough filling.
NOTE: take a look at the recipe and be sure to make the strawberry puree ahead of time so it has time to cool and chill.
More Strawberry Cakes to Love
Confetti Cookie Dough Cake with Strawberry Buttercream
Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE
- 3 cups (345 g) cake flour
- 1 tablespoon (12 g) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) salt
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 3/4 cups (350 g) granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup (72.6 g) vegetable oil
- 3 large whole eggs, at room temperature
- 3 large egg whites, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon (12 g) vanilla extract
- 1 cup (240 g) buttermilk room temperature
- 1/4 cup (60 g) sour cream, room temperature
- 1/4 cup (40 g) rainbow sprinkles
For the Whipped Cream
- 1 cup (240 g) heavy whipping cream, cold
- 1/2 cup (62.5 g) powdered sugar, measured then sifted
- 1 teaspoon (4.2 g) vanilla extract
For the Cookie Dough
- 1 cup (120 g) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon (3 g) salt
- 1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (55 g) brown sugar, packed
- 1 teaspoon (4.2 g) pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (80 g) mini chocolate chips
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM
- 3 cups (600 g) strawberries, fresh or frozen
- 2 1/4 cups (508.5 g) unsalted butter, slightly chilled
- 7 1/2 cups (937.5 g) powdered sugar measured then sifted
- 1 teaspoons (4.2 g) vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
- *This buttercream recipe makes enough to fill and cover your cake and do the piping I included above.
Instructions
FOR THE CAKE
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Spray two 8-inch round cake pans with non-stick spray, line the bottom parchment paper, and spray again. Set aside.
- In a medium size bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar, and oil on medium-high until fluffy and smooth, about 3 to 5 minutes.
- With the mixer on medium speed, add the eggs and the egg whites, one at a time, making sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl along the way. Turn the mixer to medium-high and continue to beat for an additional 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture is smooth and fluffy. Stir in the vanilla.
- Turn the mixer on low and add ⅓ of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until fully incorporated. Then add half of the buttermilk, followed by another ⅓ of the flour mixture, the second half of the buttermilk and lastly, add the remaining flour mixture and mix until incorporated.
- Fold in the sour cream, followed by the sprinkles.
- Evenly distribute the cake batter among the two cake pans (about 24 ounces in each) and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until toothpick comes out with just a few moist crumbs on it.
- Remove cakes from the oven and let cool in pans for 15 minutes before inverting onto cooling racks.
- When cakes are completely cooled, divide each cake in half horizontally, so you have four layers. You can then wrap the cake layers in plastic wrap to freeze until you’re ready to decorate.
For the Whipped Cream
- In a chilled stainless steel bowl, using a whisk attachment, beat the ingredients on high until stiff peaks form.
For the Cookie Dough
- IMPORTANT: What makes the cookie dough edible is cooking the flour first to kill any bacteria. To do this, you’ll evenly spread the flour over a baking sheet and bake it for about 10 minutes at 300 degrees F. Keep an eye on it to ensure it doesn’t brown. Allow the flour to cool to room temperature before using it in the cookie dough.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
- Add the vanilla extract and mix until combined.
- Slowly add in the flour and salt and mix until the dry ingredients are incorporated.
- Stir in the mini chocolate chips.
- Set aside 2/3 of the dough for the cake filling and use the remaining ⅓ to roll into small balls for the topping. Roll the 2/3 cookie dough into an 8” circle so it’s easy to add between the layers of the cake.
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM
- THE PUREE FOR THE BUTTERCREAM IS BEST DONE AHEAD OF TIME.
- Place the strawberries in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat for about 3 to 5 minutes. Allow the strawberries to soften, making sure to use a fork or potato masher to press down on the strawberries to release the juices.
- Once the strawberries are soft and the juices are bubbling, use an immersion blender to create a puree.
- Continue to cook the puree on low heat to reduce the water content, about 5 minutes.
- Once the mixture is thick enough to coat a spoon, remove from heat.
- Using a fine mesh strainer, strain the puree to remove seeds. This should make about ⅓ cup puree once you've cooked the water out and strained it.
- Allow the puree to cool completely before using in the buttercream. This can be done by placing the puree in the refrigerator for a few hours, or even overnight.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter for about 2 minutes.
- With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the sifted powdered sugar, one cup at a time, mixing a little in between each addition.
- With mixer on medium speed, add cooled strawberry puree, vanilla and salt.
- Turn the mixer to medium-high speed and beat for an additional 3 to 5 minutes.
- Before spreading on your cake, spend a couple minutes mixing the buttercream by hand with a wooden spoon to push out the air pockets.
ASSEMBLY
- Place the first cake layer, top side up, on a cake board or cake stand. Pipe a rim of strawberry buttercream around the edge of the cake.
- Evenly spread half of the whipped cream over the cake layer.
- Top with a second cake layer and then place the rolled out cookie dough on top of the cake.
- Top the cookie dough with a third cake layer, pipe a rim of buttercream around the edge, and fill with the remaining whipped cream.
- Place the final cake layer, top side down, on the whipped cream.
- Apply a thin coat of buttercream around the entire cake to lock in the crumbs. Freeze for about 10 minutes.
- After the crumb coat is set, continue frosting and decorating the cake. For the piping design, I used the Wilton 1m tip.
Help! Has anyone had issues with the buttercream breaking from all the liquid?? I only added half the purée (reduced and chilled) and it still happened. An extra cup of sugar didn’t fix the situation. Any advice would be appreciated thank you!
Same thing happened with mine-I added all of the purée and ended up adding another whole bag of powdered sugar to make it look like frosting. It tastes ok, but probably much sweeter than it should be. I’m serving it today so we’ll see! It looks adorable anyway! I’m wondering if it was because I sliced the strawberries before I measured them???
Oh shoot. The puree should be thick, almost like jam, by the time it cooks and cools so it incorporates well. Was it maybe too thin (meaning, still had too much water?)
Sounds like the puree needed to cook a bit longer to reduce the water content. I’ve added an extra note about that to help others. So sorry it didn’t work this round.
It probably was not enough reduction! I’ll cook the strawberries longer next time! It was delicious, though, and my family (especially grandkids) loved it! Thanks for the help!
The cake itself was pretty good. The strawberry buttercream was detectible. The cookie dough was tasty. The whole thing together wasn’t a huge hit for everyone who ate it. They thought the combo was slightly random. I enjoyed it though!
My one concern was with reducing the strawberry mixture. After reading other reviews about not getting out enough water, I was determined to cook it long enough to not have this problem. Maybe I had juicier strawberries or the humidity in my kitchen was high, but by the time I felt confident with the strawberry mixture, around 45 minutes had passed. The buttercream result was divine though.
How far in advance can I make this cake?
Whenever you want!
I had no trouble with the purée but the cookie layer would not hold together to put in the cake. The cookie balls for the top were very sweet too. I have made other Cakes by Courtney that were much better-Oreo cake is the best!!
This looks very yummy! Has anyone tried it without the cookie dough? I like the idea of a light fluffy cake for my daughters first birthday.
Okay I am struggling keeping the form on this cake, I feel like it’s the while cream center not being stable enough? Fighting the leaning tower of cake 😂
Are you piping an outer edge of buttercream?
My daughter has been on a baking kick and after last weeks amazing oreo cake, we were craving vanilla and went with this. Ugh! It’s just not great. We didn’t even add all the pure and it ruined the cake. We should have stuck with just vanilla frosting, for whatever reason, Florida strawberries stink and that smell ruins the taste. Too many flavors on this one. 6 hours, $$, and so much dishes and cleaning to do and we don’t like it 😭
I’m wondering, about how tall are the cake layers once baked? I’m trying to estimate if my cakes are rising enough or if i’m doing it wrong. They always seem very dense and not light and fluffy like the photos show.
My layers are generally 1.25-1.5″ tall, depending on the cake. If the texture is dense, it could be from using cold ingredients or over mixing the batter once the dry ingredients have been added.
May i ask what kind of mixer you use for the buttercream?
Best egards Kelly 😘❤️
I used an Ankarsrum. I have that and a kitchen aid and love both.
Thank you for sharing you Strawberry cream icing. I will be trying it soon