Circus Animal Cookie Cake

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cake mix, eggs, oil, milk, sour cream and vanilla and almond extract. Mix at a medium speed until well combined.

3. Spoon out a little less than half (about 1/3) of the cake batter and slowly add the food color until you reach the desired pink color. Start small because you can always go darker but you can’t go lighter!

4. Layer the cake batter by alternating the vanilla cake batter with the pink cake batter and swirl with a knife. Continue until you run out of cake batter.

5. Bake at 350°F for 28-35 minutes. If your cake is still a bit jiggling, cook for 2 minutes at a time until it doesn’t jiggle anymore. Test the cake by inserting a toothpick into the center of the cake, if the toothpick comes out clean, your cake is done. Allow the cake to cool completely.

6. Allow the butter to soften on the counter for 30 minutes. Beat the butter at a high speed until it is lighter in color, scraping down the bowl as needed.

7. Slowly add the powdered sugar 2 to 3 cups at a time, reduce the mixing speed and beating the sugar into the butter until it’s mixed.

8. As the frosting starts to thicken, alternate in the heavy cream and the vanilla and almond extract with the powdered sugar.

9. Once all the powdered sugar has been added, continue beating at a high speed for 1 to 2 minutes to beat extra air into the frosting.

10. Separate out about 2 to 2 ½ cups of frosting into a separate bowl. Drop in the pink food coloring 2 small drops first, mix and repeat until you reach your desired color. Food gels are thicker than food coloring, so it doesn’t take as much!

11. Using a spatula, put all the pink frosting is a large piping bag or large Ziploc bag. Cut the tip of the bag off, about ½-inch up.

12. To assemble the cake: Torte the top of cake, creating a flat surface. Add a dollop of frosting on the bottom of the cake plate and place the bottom layer of cake on top. The frosting will help prevent the cake from sliding.

13. Fill the first layer of frosting by using your piping bag and pipe from the outside edge into the center. Gently spread the frosting with an offset spatula to fill in the gaps. You should have some leftover frosting after you pipe this layer.

14. Take 1 ½ cups of circus animal cookies and crush them using a Ziploc bag and a rolling pin. The pieces should be smaller than a dime. Sprinkle 2/3 of the crushed cookies over the layer of pink frosting. Take some remaining pink frosting and pipe it on top of the cookies, and then spread it out a bit. You should still have just a little bit of pink frosting left, which you will use for the outside of the cake.

15. Place the second layer on top. Normally I invert the second layer so the bottom of the cake is on top, so it is nice and even.

16. Use some of your white frosting to create a crumb coat layer, a thin layer of frosting on the outside of the cake. It doesn’t need to be clean or nice and even, that’s why it’s a crumb coat.

17. Refrigerate the cake for at least 15 minute to allow the crumb coat to harden.

18. Remove the cake from the refrigerator. First, add about ½ cup of frosting to the top of the cake and create a nice, smooth top. Use your Viva paper towel and fondant smoother to create a flat even surface.

19. Spread the remaining frosting on the outside edge of the cake working from the bottom to the top. I also added in a few dots of the pink frosting to create the ombre look.

20. Use your icing smoother or large offset spatula to smooth edges and remove excess frosting. Again, use your Viva paper towels and the icing smoother to help smooth out the edges of the cake.

21. You may need a little excess frosting along the bottom edge to stick the cookies into. Take the remaining crushed cookies and use your hands to press them into bottom edge of the cake.