After buying the Birthday Cake cookies from Butterboy last year (read more about that here) I have been thinking about how I could recreate them.
‘Birthday Cake’ is a strange name for a flavour to me as it gives no real indication of what it actually is. I know ‘Birthday Cake’ may mean something to those who’ve grown up in the US, as I think Birthday Cake is considered a type of cake/flavour there. Like a few other flavours that seem to have originated in the US - Red Velvet and Snickerdoodle come to mind - the name of the flavour or type of cake or cookie, doesn’t give me much idea what to expect when I might actually eat one of these things.
I still remember over ten years ago, being in the US and trying to work out what exactly a Red Velvet cupcake was. Like what does red velvet actually mean? What flavours should I expect to taste when I bite into one? Everyone we asked gave us some iteration of the answer ‘Well you know, it’s just red velvet?!’. To two Australian’s who had never tasted anything red velvet, that was completely no help, as no, we didn’t just know! It wasn’t till we met up with a fellow Aussie that she said she’d seen her flatmate make red velvet cupcakes and she was sure they had chocolate in them. Once we finally tried a red velvet cupcake, we instantly knew it was chocolatey, and I guess heaped with food colouring to make it red! Finally an answer to our question.
As for ‘Birthday Cake’ flavoured things, sprinkles seem to be a must. And maybe some element that makes the baked good taste like cake, when it’s not actually a cake. I’m not sure if ‘Birthday Cake’ and funfetti cakes are one and the same, or slightly different in some way, maybe it doesn’t really matter. In the end if you add sprinkles to something it’s instantly more fun and birthday-like even if there’s no birthday to celebrate.
For these cookies I have followed closely my inspiration from Butterboy and added malt to the dough. I think this is the ‘cake’ flavour element and it works well. I’ve also used Caramilk baking chips as not only do Butterboy use caramelised white chocolate in their cookie, but Caramilk makes every cookie excellent. You can also use regular white chocolate chips or white or caramelised white chocolate that is roughly chopped.
Birthday Cake Cookies a.k.a Cookies with Sprinkles, Caramilk and Malt
Ingredients:
120g unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
290g self raising flour
2 tbsp malt powder
3.5 tbsp large sprinkles (aka. Jimmies)
120g Caramilk choc chips or roughly chopped caramelised white chocolate
Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and three large baking trays with baking paper.
Melt the butter over low/medium heat, then allow to cool slightly.
In a large bowl whisk together the butter, sugar, vanilla and egg.
Then add the flour, malt powder, sprinkles and the Caramilk choc chips, and mix to combine with a wooden spoon.
Place bowl in the fridge to allow the dough to firm up a bit (at least 15 mins).
Roll medium sized balls of the dough (about a generously heaped tablespoon of dough per cookie) and place well spaced out onto the prepared trays.
Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown, rotate the trays in the oven about halfway to help the cookies bake and brown evenly.
Allow to cool on their trays or on a wire rack.
Makes about 16 cookies.
