Oreo Cake with Coffee Oreo Buttercream

This light and fluffy oreo cake is loaded with crushed up oreos and held together with a decadent coffee oreo icing. You’ll absolutely love this homemade cookies and cream cake for your next celebration!

Oreo Cake with Coffee Oreo Frosting

Today calls for cake. I will not be explaining why. It just does. And if there’s one cake I LOVE it’s this supremely moist and tender oreo cake with coffee oreo frosting. Again….no explanation is necessary as to why this cake is the best cake in the world. It is a literally a cake loaded with oreo crumbs and topped with frosting with MORE Oreo crumbles.

What is oreo cake?

Picture your favorite, moist, fluffy vanilla cake with little oreo crumbs folded allllll throughout the batter. I mean…cake with cookies in it!! What’s not to like? You can top it off with a chocolate or vanilla buttercream, or if you’re in the mood for something a little more festive, I highly recommend the coffee oreo frosting we frosted this cake with!

You know how a certain flavor combination can take you back to a specific memory? Coffee oreo is one of those for me. I went to a rigorous boarding school that overworked us to the max. Because my high school academics were so demanding, the administration tried to keep us happy with things like a soft serve ice cream machine at lunch every Wednesday and Friday. And it worked. My friends and I would make this amazing concoction: vanilla soft serve stirred with crushed up Oreo cookies and drizzled with hot coffee. It was a poor man’s affogato and the best afternoon pick me up during a long week.

This Oreo cake took all those delicious flavors from my childhood and rearranged them into this centerpiece worthy cake.

Ingredients for oreo cake

Homemade cakes may seem scary, but they’re actually pretty straight forward once you understand the process. Plus they call for relatively basic ingredients you probably already have in your pantry!

• Vegetable Oil: The key to a silky crumb is a combination of vegetable oil and butter. Make sure your butter is at true room temperature to ensure it beats up light and fluffy!
• Granulated Sugar: Sugar will aerate the butter oil to give you a sweet and fluffy cake.
• Eggs: Any fluffy cake needs eggs! Some cakes call for separating out the egg whites and yolks and beating up the egg whites, but we don’t find that this cake needs it! Just make sure your eggs are at true room temperature to prevent your batter from seizing.
• Buttermilk: Buttermilk will give your lemon layer cake a little extra tang and help to give it an even higher rise. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand (who does?!, you can make your own with milk and lemon juice. Find our homemade buttermilk substitute here!) I have tried making this cake before with sour cram and it works but does make the texture much denser!
• Vanilla Extract: Make sure you’re using a pure vanilla extract for the best flavor!
• All Purpose Flour: If you have cake flour on hand you can use that too, but who really keeps cake flour in their cupboard at all times? Not me. All purpose flour will do just the trick and give you a silky crumb.
• Baking Powder: Baking powder gives this oreo cake the perfect rise. Make sure you are using baking powder and NOT baking soda as that will totally change the rise and texture of your cake!
• Oreos: OBVIOUSLY. You can use Oreo cookies or another brand of chocolate vanilla sandwich cookies–either will work!

How to make oreo cake

Simply start off with our favorite vanilla cake base. Remove the cream from a sleeve of Oreos and crush up the cookies (great for getting out some pent up frustration jussayin’) and stir into the cake batter. While the layers are baking, we whipped together a coffee buttercream which we also mixed with crushed up Oreos. Uh yummmmm. The flavor profile in this recipe is simply superb: just chocolate-y enough with a strong vanilla flavor that the hint of coffee complements perfectly.

We’ll be making this cookies and cream cake with coffee frosting many many more times.

How to make coffee frosting?

You might be wondering how you could make frosting that’s coffee flavored without creating a soupy, coffee, frosting mess. We flavored our cookies and cream coffee buttercream with instant espresso powder. It packs a powerful punch, without thinning out your buttercream. If you like coffee Oreo ice cream, don’t make this…because you will eat multiple spoonfuls of it and feel very sick like I did 🙂

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

How to assemble a layer cake:

Making a layer cake can seem tricky, but with these tips it will be a breeze.

1. Refrigerate or freeze your layers before assembling. This will stabilize each layer and make assembling your cake so much easier. It will also prevent any crumbs from getting into your buttercream. A win win all around.
2. Put your frosting into a large piping bag fitted with a wide piping tip or just snip off the end!  Place one layer onto your plate or cake stand. Pipe an outline around the edge of the bottom layer and then fill in the circle. This will ensure you get an even layer of frosting all around. If you fill your cake with any sort of filling (this cookies and cream cake would be AMAZING with a chocolate ganache) this will also create a dam to prevent any leakage.
3. Place the second layer on top of the first and repeat for the remaining layers. To finish the top and sides of your cake place the frosting on the top of the cake and use an angled spatula to pull the frosting down the sides of the cake.

But, Sofi, I don’t like coffee oreo…can I make this withou the coffee frosting?

Not into coffee? No problem. You could always make this cookies and cream cake with a vanilla or chocolate buttercream, or even cream cheese frosting if you’re feeling it. The cake itself doesn’t have any coffee in it and it’s super easy to swap out the frosting for something else. Feel free to tweak the recipe to whatever you desire!

Serve this with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a glass or cold milk and you’ll be transported back to after school milk and cookies, or homemade sundaes. Quite frankly I think that’s a tradition we need to bring back into our adult lives, at least every once in awhile.

Talk soon.

Sofi

p.s the recipe below will make a 2 layer 8 inch cake (pretty standard for most occasions). If you do want the 3 inch  layer cake like we have here, you can either divide your batter between 3 pans and just have slightly thinner layers or you can times the recipe by 1.5. Happy baking!

• Author: Sofi | Broma Bakery
• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook Time: 30 minutes
• Total Time: 50mins
• Yield: 2 layer 8 inch cake
• Category: dessert
• Method: oven
• Cuisine: american

Cookies and Cream Cake with Coffee Oreo Buttercream

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Take oreos and milk to the next level with this fluffy cookies and cream cake, layered together with a coffee oreo buttercream. Are you drooling too?

• Author: Sofi | Broma Bakery
• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook Time: 30 minutes
• Total Time: 50mins
• Yield: 2 layer 8 inch cake
• Category: dessert
• Method: oven
• Cuisine: american

Units: USM

Equipment

8-in cake pan

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9-in cake pan

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rolling pin

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stand mixer

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rubber spatula

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Ingredients

for the oreo cake

• 1 sleeve of Oreo cookies (about 16 cookies), cream removed
• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups cake flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/3 cups buttermilk

for the coffee oreo frosting

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar (about one box)
• 4 tablespoons whole milk
• 2–3 tablespoons espresso powder to taste
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 sleeve of Oreos, cream removed and crushed up

Instructions

for the oreo cake

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F and grease and flour three 6 inch cakes pans OR two 8 or 9 inch cake pans*. Set aside.
2. Separate the Oreos, scrape off the cream and place just the cookies in a plastic bag. Using a rolling pin crush the cookies into small pieces.
3. In a large mixing bowl fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the softened butter and oil together until they become homogenous, about 3 minutes. This will not work if your butter is not completely room temperature so make sure it’s completely softened!
4. Slowly add the granulated sugar to the oil and butter, beating on high until the mixture is light and fluffy and turns a very pale yellow, about 3 minutes.
5. Add the eggs in one at time along with the vanilla, scraping down the bowl in between each addition. Beat the mixture on high for 3 minutes more to incorporate as much air as possible.
6. In separate bowl sift together the cake flour, salt, and baking powder. Alternate mixing in the dry ingredients and the buttermilk in 4 batches, starting with the buttermilk and ending with the dry ingredients. It’s okay if the batter still has a few lumps in it–you don’t want to over mix it. Add in the Oreo pieces and mix well.
7. Split the batter evenly into the prepared pans and back for 30 minutes or until the cake is a lightly golden brown, springs back when pressed, and a knife comes out clean. Take out of the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.

for the coffee oreo frosting

1. Cream the butter, powdered sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and salt, beating until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the espresso powder in a tablespoon at a time to taste. For a less strong coffee flavor use 2, for a strong coffee flavor use 3.  Add the crushed up Oreos and mix by hand to combine.Don’t use the stand mixer as it will break the pieces up too small!
2. Place first cake on a cake stand, then top with generous amount of frosting. Layer second and third layers, frosting the same amount in between each. Frost edges of cake with remaining frosting. Top with crushed up Oreos and enjoy!

Notes

*This cake recipe will make a 3 layer 6 inch cake, a 2 layer 8 or 9 inch cake,  or a 9 x 13 inch cake