Cookies & Cream Birthday Cake

There is no denying that we love an Oreo in our house, packets are fought over with passion. Therefore when my friend Michelle made an Oreo flavoured cake for one of our Clandestine Cake Club meetings I knew I had to bring a large slice home or none at all. It proved to be a hit and my then six year old son declared he wanted this cake for his birthday. Well yesterday was his birthday and I was only too happy to oblige!

Firstly if you would like to make this cake yourself here's the link for the recipe

http://sweetapolita.com/2015/05/midnight-cookies-cream-cake/

 As you can see it's an American recipe, so if your unfamiliar with the terms here's some decoding for you....

 All purpose flour - Plain Flour
 Superfine sugar - Caster sugar
 Heavy cream - Double Cream

 Black Cocoa - This is cocoa that has been Dutched. This means it has been through a process where the acid has been stripped from the cocoa. You can buy Black Cocoa from Amazon and if you want a true Oreo experience you should buy Black Onyx Cacao, which has been heavily dutched. However Green & Blacks cacao has been dutched and works perfectly well. It's also easily available and won't break the bank! 

 High Ratio Shortening - Having done some research I decided that Trex was probably the nearest, easily available product that would match. When my friend made this cake she used all butter and the frosting was delicious, so if you don't want to use Trex it's not the end of the world. I decided to use Trex, after all if it didn't work it was only family I would be making sick! But luckily it works a treat. This is a revelation to me, it's only a vegetable fat and completely tasteless so nothing to be frightened of, it also has less saturated fat than butter. I'm definitely going to be using it more.  

 This is a true American style cake. It reminded my family of cakes that we have bought while holidaying in the States. It's a perfect party cake and a real crowd pleaser. The sponge is moist and the frosting is light. I'm calling it frosting because that really is what it is! 

 When Michelle made it she added no colour and it looked very Cookies & Cream, while in the original recipe the outside frosting is coloured pink. I thought this made it look more party like and decided to colour our one blue, for obvious reasons! Not sure I would do it again, not only did the children go a bit hyper, but I think white frosting with sprinkles running through it would be nicer, but that's just a personal preference! 

 The family raved about this cake and it will be a regular I'm sure. My sister-in-law even declared she wanted it as her wedding cake. I said 'Maybe not in blue?' and she replied 'No, definitely keeping the blue, I love the blue!' And she was serious.....