Three different types of cookies, piped white chocolate snowflakes, two pounds of Italian meringue butter cream, one order of perfectly portioned 1:1 chocolate ganache and a double dose of betty’s popular devils food cake shakes out to be one delicious winter wonderland cookie cake by yours truly.

A lot of time and effort went into this cake, and it did morph slightly from my original concept, but ultimately I am happy with the result. In November, I spent a day in a bakery learning from a wedding cake expert, and from there I was off and running. I will be exploring cakes more in the future so stay tuned.

I was inspired by the fun and whimsical cakes that are clad with colors, drips and big fancy displays of chocolate garnishes, so I decided to add my own twist and make a cake that plays around with some different cookies that I know and love.

This cake has Norwegian Butter Balls, meringue cookies in two different colors — white and pale pink, and checkerboard cookies, along with piped white chocolate garnishes. I have included the recipe for the Norwegian Butter Balls — which I recommend to everyone because they are a winter classic. The checkerboard cookies are my softest sugar cookie recipe that I divided up into chocolate and regular dough, rolled out to about 1/2-inch thickness and stacked and cut using an egg wash. If there is more interest in the checkerboard cookies let me know and I will make a post dedicated to them only. You can find the meringue recipe that I used here.

Messing around with different piping techniques for the meringue cookies was quite fun. I tried Wilton tip #12, #199 and #32, making some of the meringues look like snow men, flowers, and rounded shapes with the traditional kiss look. As for the white chocolate piped snowflakes, they were a little more difficult than I thought they were going to be. All I did was melt some white chocolate, scoop it into a ziplock baggie and then cut the tip of the baggie to guide the chocolate onto some parchment. In hindsight, I think a piping bag with a super small tip like wilton #1 would have given me more control while piping out the delicate snowflakes — the baggie was easy, but a tad drippy and sloppy. Also, you have to move pretty quickly when working with the warm white chocolate since it cools and hardens in a hurry.

Just in case you have never made ganache before, I used a standard 1:1 ratio of chocolate to cream. I weighted about about 8-ounces of cream and dark chocolate, heated the cream in a saucepan and then poured it over the chocolate and let it sit for about one minute. Then I whisked it vigorously until the chocolate was perfectly smooth and shiny. I poured it over the chilled cake and used a spatula to guide the chocolate over the sides to create the drips.

On a last note, I have to admit that I love Martha, but I tried her Italian meringue butter cream recipe and was not impressed. I will post the recipe that I received in culinary school, but be prepared for the ridiculous amount of butter required. Believe it or not, this cake owes about 3-pounds of its weight to butter alone.

Happy Holidays and Merry Almost Christmas!!!🤶🎄💫❄️☃️🎁🕎