Recipe Sunday: Reese’s Pieces Cookie Cake.

I used to eat Reese’s Pieces for lunch. Yep, that’s right – the same girl who now counts every calorie, reads the ingredients on everything, and runs 6 miles every other day, used to sit down at her desk at work for lunch with a bag of Reese’s Pieces and a smoothie/milk shake/other type of frothy fattening drink and eat half the bag. And I wondered why I felt sick all the time.

lunch of champions.

Anyway, I still love these little pieces of chocolate and peanut butter heaven, but I rarely eat them these days, since the major diet overhaul of 2010, which included a huge cutback on candy. But last week, I was out shopping, and there they were, just sitting there, as always, mixed in with all the other candy I never get to enjoy anymore…and before I knew what happened, I grabbed the bag, and threw it in the cart, and headed straight for the checkout before I could change my mind. The problem then became that I was eating them. And because I still count calories, it was torture – 51 Reese’s Pieces sounds like a lot, but it’s really hardly making a dent. I had to do something, quick. It was my friend’s birthday, and he loves cookies, so I was going to make him a cookie cake anyway, and as I assembled the ingredients on the table, there they were again, right in front of me. It was an “Aha!” moment – I’ll make a Reese’s Pieces Cookie Cake and decorate it with Peanut Butter Buttercream! so that’s exactly what I did.

And now, I’ll share the recipe with you.

reese’s make a birthday happier.

Reese’s Pieces Cookie Cake.

What you’ll need:

5 oz. shortening

8 oz.   sugar

.25 oz.  salt

3 oz. (about 2)  eggs

.25 oz.  vanilla

10 oz.  flour

.25 oz.  baking soda

7 oz. Reese’s Pieces

What you’ll do:

Preheat the oven to 350° F.  In a large bowl, cream together the shortening, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs and vanilla, and add to the shortening/sugar.  In another bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda. Fold that mixture into the other ingredients until evenly mixed. Fold in the Reese’s Pieces. You will be very tempted to eat the dough – do so at your own risk. I have built up a tolerance for raw dough/batter over the years, so I enjoy it freely with no consequences. I’m still not sure if this is a good thing.

just when you thought cookie dough couldn’t get any better.

Spray a 10″ round cake pan. Take 2/3 of the dough, and press it evenly into the bottom of the cake pan. It should be about an inch high. Bake for 16-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Note that you still have 1/3 of unbaked dough – do with it what you wish! I’m saving it for another project, which I’ll post later this week!

I decorated it with a complimentary Peanut Butter Buttercream – the recipe of which you can find here, under a previous Recipe Sunday for White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes.