brown sugar oreo cake.

"My birthday is next monday!"

"Oh really? Shall I make a cake and bring it to class?"

"I like oreos."

So the story goes, a very abbreviated version of it that is. I then found myself with the task of coming up with a birthday-worthy cake using oreos. And I enjoyed it as usual.

I am a chronic daydreamer. Close to half my waking hours are spent daydreaming; it may be an exaggeration, then again maybe not. I feel that most of the time my eyes are open but I'm seeing without really seeing. In front of me lies a magazine flipped open with its pages painted in kaleidoscopic hues but even the brightest of colours can't pull me back from my state of being plugged out from reality; these kinds of scenarios happen a lot and reaches an all day high when I'm in school.

One of my favorite things to daydream about is baking. What to bake next, specifically. I like having to innovate with the last bit of heavy cream, the remaining few slabs of white chocolate, the final spoonfuls of peanut butter than having an entire range of ingredients available to me. I think it's because my brain would just overload with the amount of possibilities and I would usually end up not baking because it's too tiring to think.

So I was glad that my friend named a particular ingredient she wanted in her cake. It's only one condition, which I think draws a certain boundary but doesn't restrict my creativity too much either. But I had other issues to think about as well. The cake had to be transported and exposed to super hot temperatures for at least 15 minutes so I wasn't about to risk frosting the cake for it may melt. Therefore, my two restrictions were: oreo, no frosting (but the cake still had to look good).

I started with the idea of a giant chocolate chip cookie cake with oreo pieces embedded in it. But I was afraid it would be too rich and too sweet for some and I momentarily played with the idea of making regular oreo-stuffed cookies. Then I wondered if cookies were festive enough for birthdays and decided that it was not, instead turning to a cake version of a chocolate chip cookie, replacing the chocolate chips with oreos. I would have picked it if I wasn't that particular about aesthetics; I mean - the cookie cake is supposed to bake up a little shorter than regular cakes and you know when it comes to birthday cakes, the bigger, the taller, the better. I think this paragraph is getting kinda long so I shall skip to the end where I finally decided to do this brown sugar oreo cake. My friend also likes cookie dough so I just adapted a regular yellow cake recipe, changing the white sugar to brown for a caramelly flavour that is reminiscent of chocolate chip cookies.

When the cake was baked the top, although littered with oreos, looked a little bare so I decided to drizzle a regular glaze over the surface. Halfway through I decided to add a little cocoa powder and continue waving my fork back and forth over the cake just for a little extra colour. I sliced the cake, I snacked on a few large crumbs that dislocated themselves from the slices. Baker's treat. The cake was so moist it might as well have been one that was made with oil and not butter.

Oreos or not, I'm bookmarking this recipe.

Brown Sugar Oreo Cake
makes a 7 inch tube cake

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
one sleeve of oreos (about 14), crushed roughly

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a 7 inch tube pan.

Whisk the cake flour, baking powder and salt until combined.

Cream the butter until smooth. Beat in the brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one by one, incorporating the first fully before adding the next. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Stir in flour mixture in 3 additions and the milk in 2, incorporating each fully before adding the next. Stir in some of the crushed oreos.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining oreos on top. Bake for about 30 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs attached. Cool completely before slicing.