Cookie Cake Monster

It was the end of a positively foul week, on a day that I was determined to make lemons out of lemonade (figuratively and literally) because it was Jon's 32nd birthday. He has a history of bad birthdays--see birthday #30, when he was living in Boston and I sent him on a treasure hunt to pick up the ice cream cake I'd ordered and purchased, but, sadly, the store lost my credit card information and he had to buy his cake himself. As the lemonade finished chilling, I received via post one of the best gifts ever. A cookie cake.

If the cake had tasted like cardboard, it still would have been incredible because it was sent with such thought by two of my very best friends. But this cake, OH, this cake -- it was marvelous.

Upon first bite, my surprise and delight echoed down the hall of our house. "Oh my god." At times like these, I wish my first responses could be more original, but who has time for words when they're wide-eyededly savoring the awesomeness that is Forget Me Knot's cookie cake.

Ringed with yellow buttercream and green frosted flowers, the kind of frosting that tastes like Crisco in a good way, the thin chocolate layer on top is only a teaser. The cake is at least an inch thick, and dense with the burden of semisweet chocolate chips. It's baked a little raw, so it's like eating cookie dough in cake form. Unlike the ones from the mall that I ate at arcade birthday parties as a kid, this cake tastes and smells of fresh butter, sugar, and chocolate. If there were such a thing as a cookie cake farm, this one would win a smattering of blue ribbons at the county fair.

I was already set to make birthday cupcakes for Jon that day (I wasn't about to try a cake as I hadn't baked in a long while--more on that birthday meal soon), so we ended up with both leftover cake and cupcakes. I tried to be good, I wanted to make the cake last. I cut it into slices, and froze them individually wrapped. That didn't take. The next day when I raided the freezer, I discovered my cake was even better chilled.

A few days later, when it was all gone, I started concocting wild fantasies of valid reasons why I should order another. Then I bought cookies, cookie dough ice cream, and frosting, trying to duplicate my present, but when your point of comparison is the best cookie cake ever, it's not so easy. I comforted myself with cupcakes, and eventually pulled through. Thankfully, my birthday #30 is coming soon, and this is one cake I'd be happy to buy for myself.