This is a tiny post about a tiny treat written by a tiny person. If you are a doll or an ant or a small human: welcome, you’ll fit right in! If you are a regular sized human or a puppy or a GI Joe figurine: fear not! You too will enjoy this tiny treat because it’s basically Oreos, frosting, and a manifestation of all your hopes and dreams. What’s not to like?
When I first heard that you could take Oreos and make them into mini cakes suitable for Samantha or Rebecca (true confession, I learned about this magical confection from The American Girl Company’s Tiny Treats) the inner eight-year-old in me was like, “Okay you have to go home and make these TONIGHT.” So I did and I’m super glad, because these are so delicious and also crazy easy to execute that my eight-year-old self really could have made them, without adult supervision and everything, I swear. You can decorate them however you’d like — they definitely don’t have to be Halloween-specific! But since I adore the holiday and it’s right around the corner, that’s the direction I went with.
I’m here to share this teeny tiny delicacy with you, despite the fact that when I introduced the idea to my girlfriend she told me it was “the weirdest thing [she’d] ever heard.” But pay no heed to her doubts, because she totally helped me inhale the finished product and admitted they were delicious. Anyway, we’re all weirdos here, right? Right.
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Tiny Halloween Layer Cakes
yes, that’s an orange plate — i take being festive very seriously
Ingredients:
Oreos
Frosting
Decorations (I used orange sprinkles and bat shaped sprinkles)
oh my god don’t these look delicious already?!
Directions:
When I say these are crazy easy to make, I am really not kidding at all. The photos above pretty much cover all the actual steps, but I’ll use some words to over-explain, okay? My girlfriend sometimes chides me for over-explaining because she says it makes her feel dumb, but I’m never doing it because I think she’s dumb and I promise I don’t think you’re dumb either — I just like to talk! So okay, let’s walk through this. You take two Oreos. You put some frosting in between them, and you press them together. Then you frost the whole damn thing! It can be a tad messy, but honestly it’s really just like frosting a cupcake and you can do it, I believe in you.
the jack o’ lantern was my favorite
Now comes the fun part: DECORATING! I used festive sprinkles to make my designs, but you can do anything. Go crazy with colorful frosting, marshmallows, piping, fruit, jelly beans, sugar…the list of decorations you can use is as endless as your imagination. I highly recommend taking some sprinkles and creating a design on at least one cake, because people will ohhhh and ahhhh as if you morphed into a unicorn on command. And you’ll feel amazing about yourself even though making that Jack O’ Lantern really wasn’t that hard you guys, seriously (but you can keep telling me how awesome it is, please, do go on).
tell me those don’t look like real slices of cake
I bet you think we’re done now. Almost. This part is actually the most important step, so you have to promise me that you’ll exercise some patience and follow it. You need to leave the cakes to rest overnight. I know. I know! Trust me, my inner eight-year-old self was not happy either. But it really is worth it, because this is the coolest part. When you leave the cookies covered in frosting that are now masquerading as tiny layer cakes overnight (or at the very least for 5-7 hours) the frosting softens the cookie, and when you go to cut yourself a slice of “cake”…it will really have the consistency of cake! It won’t be hard, there won’t be crumbs, you won’t struggle! Au contraire! It will actually be just like cutting a real slice of cake — a real slice of fancy well-decorated layer cake. Bam! Happy Halloween.
Hey, me just met you
And this is crazy
But you got cookiecake
So share it maybe ?
American Girl “cook” and craft books were the BEST.
With the ones that involved actual cooking, though, my mom always ended up being the one to make it. I was so lazy.
Did anyone else have that party book where you could have historically-themed parties based on the different dolls’ time periods? I really wish that I could find that because there was so much delicious food in it that I am dying to make.
@Rose: I did not have the American Girl cookbooks, but I remember checking them out of the library and gazing endlessly at the illustrations. I don’t know for sure if we are thinking of the same ones, but it looks like Amazon may be able to help us relive the glory: http://www.amazon.com/Felicitys-Cookbook-Dining-American-Collection/dp/1562471201/ref=pd_sim_b_1
Yes, This wins.
I’m going to use organic Newman O’s to pretend that these are “healthy.”
Adorable!
i call them “healthy” in my head because they are tiny. the secret is that when you at 10 tiny cakes it is no longer healthy but sh, don’t tell anyone!
my step-grandmother does the same thing. except it’ll be like, rice cakes. and we’re all like shut up, those ARE healthy, stop being awful and making us all feel bad about eating cookies.
Oh. My. Gosh. I cannot wait to make these. Also glad I’m not the only one to still own/use American girl books. Vanessa, you are the greatest.
Oh my godfather this is freaking genius.
My AP Gov class is having a halloween party next wednesday, and I really want to make these for them. My teacher is also OBSESSED with cupcakes and I think she would LOVE these.
So cute and wonderful! I want to make these with a cute girl and then oops we need to be entertained for a while…let’s snuggle and kiss?
Then you have mini cakes, snuggle/kiss time, and maybe a nap.
Fun fact: Assuming you grab one of the many types of frosting that happen to be vegan (a lot of Duncan Hines, don’t remember what else) and are mindful of sprinkle ingredients, this is totally vegan.
that is an awesome fact — thank you for pointing it out :)
Soft oreos are one of my more favorite things — I purposefully leave packages of oreos sitting open so they’ll get stale, and thus soft, more quickly — so doing that with the bonus of frosting all ’round? GENIUS.
there is a regular sized disgusting version of this that exists in Australia, i want to say uni colleges (dorms) in particular called chocolate ripple cake. the reason it is disgusting is that it is the most boring unchocolatey chocolate biscuit/unsweet cookie ever, layered upon its clones with not frosting, but plain whipped cream. some people love the stuff but i always found it a fat bitter mess. therefore this tiny version seems much better not in the least because of its tininess.
doesn’t everything seem better when it’s tiny?! make a regular sized thing bite size and suddenly it’s adorable and perfect and everything is wonderful!
also that cake sounds really yucky, especially because i hate whipped cream. i promise these tiny treats will be nothing like that cake!
Omfg I LOVE chocolate ripple cake!!!! It’s incredibly chocolatey, I always have to eat it with a mountain of strawberries so I don’t die of richness overload!
But you know, that’s cool you don’t like it. All the more for me. :P
i think the cream to chocolate ratio in the ones i have sampled was a thousand times too large and therefore all wrong. but also, the weird bitter ‘chocolate’ water that comes out of it.. maybe my college f’ed it up.
Um I would say so…that sounds effed up. HOW CAN YOU MAKE IT WRONG? This is what I tell people to make for their girl/boyfriends when they reckon they can’t cook, coz it is so easy but so good.
Some people soak the biscuits in coffee which could account for weird water stuff?
And maybe they didn’t sweeten and vanilla the cream.
And maybe I need to mail you a proper one. :P
there was definitely no sweetening or vanilla-ing of cream, i think all the sugar leached out of the biscuits therefore maximum gross. thanks for the offer but i think i’ll make do with teeny oreo cakes!
Dear Vanessa,
I WANT THESE IN MY MOUTH SO MUCH OH GOD!
Love,
Ali
I did this. I used Double Stuff Oreos. Then I ate them. I do not feel guilty. Thanks Vanessa.
it makes me so happy that you make so many of the get baked recipes! the first girl i ever kissed had a hoodie that said “FEEL NO GUILT IN YOUR DESIRE” so i think that’s the motto we should all follow w/r/t these treats.
i generally do not feel guilty stuffing my mouth full of something when its cute