Cookie Monster Birthday Cake With Cookie Dough Filling

Moist, dark chocolate mocha cake, with a delicious layer of (eggless, of course!) cookie dough in the middle...  Pretty much heaven in cake-form.  

Decorated to look like Cookie Monster for a 3 year old's birthday!

Dark Chocolate Mocha Cake with Cookie Dough Filling Recipe

Ingredients:
for the cake:
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup dutch-processed unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup very hot strong coffee (or 1 cup boiling water)
for the filling:
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips

Directions:
for the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Grease and flour (or use a baking spray with flour in it!) two 9-inch round cake pans.

In a large mixer bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa, soda, powder & salt until combined.

Add in the eggs, milk, oil & vanilla and mix well, on medium speed for about 2 minutes.

Stir in the hot coffee until the batter is smooth and thin.  Pour evenly into the two pans and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the cake is set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the cakes in the pans for 5-10 minutes and then flip out onto a wire rack to cool completely before filling and frosting.

for the filling:
In a mixer bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until smooth.  Mix in the milk and vanilla until smooth.  Mix in the flour until just well combined and then stir in the chocolate chips.

This will make more cookie dough filling than you probably need...  but I'm sure you'll be able to figure out what to do with the leftovers!  ;o)

for the frosting:
I used a simple vanilla buttercream frosting recipe (this one) for my cake because I needed to decorated it like cookie monster.

I would probably use a milk chocolate buttercream or even my nutella buttercream frosting if I wasn't trying to decorate it that way!